Oh no. Just when I thought I had the ethics of things straightened out. Or at least I knew what to feel guilty about. As you already know from an earlier entry on this book. Peter Singer and Jim Mason have a book out entitled The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Published originally in 2006, the book includes a chapter entitled "Eating Locally" and then a chapter entitled "Trade, Fair Trade, and Workers' Rights." The first of these two chapters examines such arguments for the ethics of eating locally as "you'll strengthen your local economy"; "you'll support endangered family farms"; and "you'll protect the environment." Read alongside one another these two chapters definitely raise some questions. Most crucially: when does the potential of agricultural production and export from very poor countries to help people trump eating locally as an ethical imperative. Singer and Mason argue that at least in some instances the potential to improve the lives of impoverished people elsewhere wins out. Elsewhere in the book there are contrasts between locally grown (out of season, hot house) tomatoes and tomatoes trucked from Florida to the Northeast. Turns out the local hot house tomatoes cost more in petroleum products than shipping from Florida. Again, sometimes local is not the best thing.
On the other hand, SInger and Mason do write a bit about NY State. Three examples (ok, this is about all they have to say about our neck of the woods, but it is worth knowing if you did not already):
(1) They write about Peter Lovenheim who lives in Rochester. (See their pages 56 and following). Lovenheim did what Michael Pollan did only he did it (I think) before Pollan did -- buy a few calves and follow them. In Lovenheim's case, they were dairy cows raised at Lawnel Farm. Since our state is one of the largest for dairy production, you don't know local unless you know dairy in upstate. Lovenheim's book, Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf: The Story of One Man, Two Cows, and the Feeding of a Nation was published by Random House in 2003. It's on my to do list now!
(2) Singer and Mason do discuss the growing green market phenomenon, including Union Square in Manhattan. As they put it: "New York City's Council on the Environment, which organizes the markets, allocates stalls only to regional farmers who produce the food they sell. No middlemen are permitted. Between them, the 175 farmers who regularly sell their goods in New York produce 120 different kinds of apples, a similar range of tomato varieties, and 350 kinds of peppers." (p. 137)
(3) And, the two authors discuss Elizabeth Henderson -- a board member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association -- who grows "70 different organic vegetables, fruits, and herbs on the 15-acre Peacework Cooperative Farm near Rochester, New York." (p. 216). for more on Peacework and their related CSA, click here.
All of these are swell in terms of both information and options. So, no, eating local is not bad. But it is not uniformly the best choice, depending on what you are posing it over against. Local and seasonal, for example, may be key. And you can always know more about local circumstances. Here's a blog I like a lot that focuses on not-quite-our-local-but-still-upstate-New-York local, for example.
So: When do you eat locally? When not? Why not?
