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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost AT gilanet.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Local food
  • Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:31:56 -0700

Local food From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food

Local food (also regional food) is a principle of sustainability relying on
consumption of food products locally grown. It is part of the concept of
local purchasing, a preference to buy locally produced goods and services.

The concept is often related to the slogan Think globally, act locally,
common in green politics. Those supporting development of local food economy
consider that since food is needed by everyone, everywhere, everyday, a small
change in the way it is produced and marketed will have great effect on
health, ecosystem and cultural diversity preservation. They say shopping
decisions focusing on local food consumption directly affect the well-being
of people, improve local economies and may be ecologically more sustainable.

In general, local food is in opposition to the ideas of global free trade.
Critics argue that by convincing consumers in developed nations not to buy
food produced in the third world, the local food movement damages the economy
of third world nations, which often rely heavily on food exports and cash
crops.

Critics also say that local food tends to be more expensive to the consumer
than regular food and could never provide the variety of foods currently
available (such as having summer vegetables available in winter, or having
kinds of food available which can not be locally produced due to soil or
climate conditions).

However, proponents indicate that the lower price of regular food (which is
sometimes called cheap food) is often due to governmental subsidies (in the
form of price supports or direct payments or tax breaks) and often does not
take into account the true cost of the product. They further indicate that
buying local food does not necessarily mean giving up all food coming from
distant ecoregions, but rather favoring local foods when available.


What defines local or regional?

The definition of local or regional is quite flexible and is disputed. Some
see "local" as being a very small area (typically the size of a city and its
surroundings), others would rather suggest the ecoregion size, while others
would define refer to the borders of their nation or state.

However, most proponents of "local food" state that "local" has little to do
with distance or with the size of a "local" area. For example, some could see
the American state of Texas as being "local", though that state is much
larger than some European countries. In this case, the distance of transport
of a food product across Texas could be longer than the distance between a
northern and a southern European country.

It is also argued that national borders should preferably not be used to
define what is local. For people living in, say, the South of England, food
produced in Northern France is more "local" than food produced in Scotland.
Similarly, a cheese produced in Alsace is likely to be more "local" to German
people living in Frankfurt, than to French people living in Marseille.

Local is often defined in the view of ecology, trying to see food production
from the perspective of a basic ecological unit defined by its climate, soil,
watershed, species and local agrisystems, unit also called ecoregion.


Local food is often equated with organic food

Local food is - by definition - food locally grown.

Many local food proponents tend to equate local food with food produced by
local individual farmers, while equating non-local food with food produced
and transformed by large agribusiness.

Local food is also often interpreted as being organic, or produced by farmers
who adopt sustainable and human practices, while non-local food is often seen
as a result of corporations, heavy subsidies, poor animal welfare, lack of
care for the environment, and poor working conditions. This restricted
interpretation is likely due to the fact that the organic movement is largely
responsible for renewed development of local and regional markets.

Those using this interpretation will often insist on buying food directly
from local family farms following sustainable agricultural practices, or in
farmers' markets or food cooperatives. For many, local food is interpreted as
unprocessed food (to be transformed by the consumer or local shop rather than
by the food industry). As such, local food (as opposed to global food) avoids
costs in transport, packaging, advertising, processing, artificial flavors,
and chemical preservatives. They support resisting globalization of food by
pressing for policy changes and choosing to buy local food.


Impacts of local food systems


Transport distance

A goal of a local food system might be to minimize food transport distance.
Transport costs must consider weight as well as distance. If food is
processed, it may lose weight compared with unprocessed food. To the extent
it is processed nearer production, less weight is transported a longer
distance. If it is processed by the consumer, more weight may be transported,
though the trip from production to processing can be avoided. The amount of
fossil fuel consumed and CO2 emissions released in the atmosphere of more
local, unprocessed food vs. less local, processed food are thus ambiguous.
This issue is addressed by the field of regional science. A consumer report
published in 2003 by The Guardian newspaper in the UK found that a selection
of 20 fresh food items purchased from British supermarkets had travelled an
average of 5,000 miles each[1]
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,952682,00.html).


Food quality

Another effect could be increase in food quality and taste. Locally produced
food may be consumed more quickly after production, so is often fresher and
usually riper (e.g. fruit picked up nearer to maturing state, as in fruit and
vegetable gardening). Since food is consumed more quickly, there is less need
of chemical or irradiation treatments to artificially extend shelf-life. This
debate is particularly intense around organic foods.


Agrisystems and sustainable farming

A major potential effect of local food systems is to encourage multiple
cropping, i.e., growing multiple species and a wide variety of crops at the
same time and same place (to compare with monoculture).

With a higher demand in various agricultural products, farmers are more
likely to diversify their production, thereby making it easier to farm in a
sustainable way. For example, winter intercropping (e.g. coverage of
leguminous crops during winter) and crop rotation may reduce pest pressure,
and so the use of pesticides. Also, in an animal/crop multiculture system,
the on-farm byproducts like manure and crop residues may be used to replace
chemical fertilizers, while on-farm produced silage and leguminous crops may
feed the cattle instead of imported soya. Manure and residues being
considered as by-products rather than waste, will have reduced effects on the
environment, and reduction in soya import is likely to be economically
interesting for the farmer, as well as more secure (because of a decrease of
market dependence on outside inputs).

In a polycultural agrisystem, there is usually a more efficient use of human
capital (labour) (as each crop has a different cycle of culture, hence
different time of intensive care), minimization of risk (lesser effect of
extreme weather as one crop can compensate another), reduction of insect and
disease incidence (diseases are usually crop specific), maximization of
results with low levels of technology (intensive monoculture cropping often
involves very high-technology material and sometimes the use of genetically
modified seeds). Multiculture also preserve indigenous biodiversity.


Local economies

Local food production strengthens local economies by protecting small farms,
local jobs, and local shops, thus increasing food security.

One example of an effort in this direction is community-supported agriculture
(CSA), where consumers purchase advance shares in a local farmer's annual
production, in return for equal shares of the harvest. In effect, CSA members
become financiers of and participants in local farming, by providing up-front
cash, and sharing in the risks and rewards of seasonal growing conditions.
Some CSA set-ups require members to contribute a certain amount of labor, in
a form of cooperative venture.

The popular resurgence of farmers' markets in many parts of the world,
including Europe and North America, contributes to local economies. Farmers'
markets are traditional in many societies, bringing together local food and
craft producers for the convenience of local consumers. Today, some urban
farmers' markets are large-scale enterprises, attracting tens of thousands on
a market day, and vendors are not always "local". However, the majority of
markets are still built around actual local farmers.

There should be more on local food and bartering systems.

Particularly in the "developed nations", the move away from local food to
agribusiness over the last 100 years has had a profound socioeconomic effect,
by redistributing populations into urban areas, and concentrating ownership
of land and capital. In addition, the traditional farming skill set, which by
necessity included a diverse range of knowledge and abilities required to
manage a farm, has given way to new generations of specialists. When farming
for local consumption was a cornerstone of local economies, the farmer was an
integral, leading member of the community, a far different position from
today. Support for local food is seen by some as a way to rediscover valuable
community structures, values and perspectives.


History of the local food movement

The local food movement in the European Union has been hindered by EU rules
requiring things produced in the EU, including food, to be marked as products
of the EU, rather than as products of any particular country. The instinct of
customers to buy nationally produced food in the name of patriotism was
deemed to be a barrier to free trade. Of course, as was mentioned above, for
people living in the South of England, food produced in Northern France is
more "local" than food produced in Scotland.





  • [Market-farming] Local food, Tradingpost, 12/24/2004

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