Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Michelle, I'm that person who "said the article was flawed because its
findings were comparing only farms with high energy inputs and low food
miles against farms with low energy inputs and high food miles". But what I
tried to say, Frances and Anna Lappé  said better in their unpublished
response to the editor of the Times. Anyway it turned out I was in total
agreement with Frances and Anna.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
listowner

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 8/14/2007 at 3:23 PM Michelle Kuhns wrote:

>Michelle Kuhns
>Home Garden Coordinator
>Community Food Security Center
>Community Food Bank, Suite 221
>3003 S. Country Club Rd.
>Tucson, AZ 85713
>520.622.0525 x240
>
>
>>>> Kelly Watters 8/14/2007 3:06 PM >>>
>
>some letters responding to the Food that Travels Well op-ed...
>I don't know how many of you are Economist readers but, if you are, you
>might remember the magazine’s relatively recent attack on local
foods
>advocates. Are locavores just clueless environmentalists who don't have
>their facts straight? Might it be, as the Economist claimed, actually
>better for the environment to buy food from halfway around the world, if
>that food was produced more ecologically? A recent New York Times op-ed
>picked up a similar line of argument.  See below for my mother and my
>unpublished response to the editor of the Times, click here to read the
>letters the Times did publish, and check out fan-of-the-local Michael
>Shuman's "On the Lamb" for an in-depth response.
>
>Best,
>Anna
>
>To the Editor:
>In an apparent attempt to set us straight on real value of “local
>food” in lightening our earthly footprint, James E. McWilliams
(Food
>That Travels Well, 8.6.07) beats up on a straw man, confusing the whole
>question. Local foods advocates don’t promote just any kind of
local, as
>he implies. Tyson Foods’ highly inefficient, large-footprint
factory may
>be local to some, but an anathema to sustainable eating activists. His
>prime example, that in the U.K. imported grass-fed lamb embodies less
>fossil fuel use than local grain-fed, is not proof that imports are
>superior but that we should eat less grain-fed meat. He notes that we must
>include organic, sustainable farming practices, as well as minimal
>packaging, into our eating calculations, but eat-local folks already
>heartily agree. The author, moreover, ignores the many reasons beyond the
>ecological for provisioning locally whenever possible—such as less
>vulnerability to concentrated political and market power.
>Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé
>Small Planet Institute
>Buying Local Food Is Still Better (6 Letters)
>Published: August 12, 2007
>To the Editor:
>Skip to next paragraph
>Related
>Op-Ed Contributor: Food That Travels Well (August 6, 2007)
>In “Food That Travels Well” (Op-Ed, Aug. 6), James E.
McWilliams
>explains something counterintuitive: sometimes foods with low
“food
>miles” can squander more carbon than foods that have traveled
further to
>get to you. So what’s the environmentally concerned consumer to
do?
>How about asking for a sensible carbon tax on fossil fuels, so that the
>lamb chop that consumed vast quantities of carbon in the form of feed
>fertilizers, jet fuel and diesel would cost more than the lamp chop that
>consumed less, wherever it was raised?
>Jessica Avery
>Newton, Mass., Aug. 6, 2007
>To the Editor:
>James E. McWilliams asserts that a study by Lincoln University in New
>Zealand indicated that “it is four times more energy-efficient for
>Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to
>buy it from a producer in their backyard,” because “poorer
British
>pastures force farmers to use feed.”
>While this finding is certainly convenient for New Zealand’s
lucrative
>food export industry, it overlooks a central issue: to achieve
>sustainability in agriculture, we need to adjust our eating habits
>accordingly.
>In other words, if it is so inefficient to produce lamb locally that it is
>better for the environment to import it from New Zealand, maybe, just
>maybe, we should be eating less of it.
>Lara A. Ballard
>Washington, Aug. 6, 2007
>To the Editor:
>James E. McWilliams provides a provocative, thoughtful way to consider
>“food miles,” yet I do not agree with his statement that
“we must
>accept that buying local is not necessarily beneficial for the
>environment.”
>Sure, transporting grass-fed lamb from New Zealand to Britain might use
>less petroleum than feeding corn to British sheep, but that is not the
>whole story. In the 1980s, as a result of the loss of farm subsidies, some
>New Zealand farmers went through a radical (and painful) process of
>changing their farming practices over to feeding livestock on grass grown
>in their pastures. This is what makes their lamb less dependent on
>petroleum.
>What we need is to encourage farmers throughout the world to return to
>grass farming. Then “local” will truly be better for the
environment,
>as well as better for reasons few care to criticize — superior
flavor,
>our health and a better local economy.
>Anne McKeithen
>Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 6, 2007
>To the Editor:
>James E. McWilliams makes an interesting argument for regional food
>distribution systems over local ones. His comments on “food
miles” are
>thoughtful, but there is another reason, beyond environmental concerns,
>for developing and supporting local food, and that is food security.
>The day may come, suddenly or gradually, when current distribution systems
>no longer function. That fact should put farmers’ markets and
community
>gardens, like Victory Gardens during World War II, front and center of
>cultural change.
>Molly McCluer
>Memphis, Aug. 6, 2007
>To the Editor:
>James E. McWilliams widens the lens on the carbon impact of eating
>locally, but he doesn’t go the last mile. Because outlets for
locally
>grown meat and produce are fewer and farther between than ordinary grocery
>stores, most consumers have to drive farther to get to them. If each
>locavore drives his Prius an extra 10 miles to buy a local chicken,
>that’s 3.5 pounds of emissions, or 1,400 pounds per ton of chicken
>(assuming beefy five-pound birds). Even if each buyer stocks up on several
>chickens, that’s a lot of carbon.
>Tamar Haspel
>New York, Aug. 6, 2007
>To the Editor:
>While I applaud James E. McWilliams’s tacit recognition that the
issue
>of food sustainability is not as trivial as “eat locally,”
I believe
>that he misses an important and fundamental aspect of the transition to
>any form of environmental, social or economic sustainability.
>His argument assumes that our society will be able to maintain our current
>quality and quantity of consumption in a sustainable future. While this
>might be a best-of-all-possible-worlds scenario, it is far more likely
—
>if not certain — that our patterns of consumption will be forced
to
>change.
>We might not necessarily eat less (though many argue for this on health
>grounds), but we should anticipate that our diets will conform more to the
>available foods than to our epicurean whims. As some new food books
>suggest, a more geographically and temporally local diet can not only be
>healthier for the body and the environment, but can also be more
>interesting and flavorful.
>Kent Hurst
>Arlington, Tex., Aug. 6, 2007
>
>
>>>> Michelle Kuhns 8/7/2007 11:03 AM >>>
>
>Here's an interesting article that came up on a listserv I'm on.  It makes
>the case that maybe we've all gone a little too crazy about local. Food
>miles may not be the only indicator of environmental friendliness or
>energy consumption, and sometimes food traveling farther is better for the
>environment (considering how it was produced), the author says.  There was
>an interesting discussion that followed on the listserv where one person
>said the article was flawed because its findings were comparing only farms
>with high energy inputs and low food miles against farms with low energy
>inputs and high food miles (ignoring those with both low energy inputs AND
>low food miles).
>
>I think it's important for us to consider these sorts of arguments and to
>think about what they mean for the people in the "red zone" on behalf of
>whom we do our work!  I'm curious what the rest of you think about it...
>
>michelle
>
>
>
>>>> <emitch@worldnet.att.net> 8/6/2007 3:20 PM >>>
>
>
>
>
>
>This page was sent to you by:  emitch@worldnet.att.net
>Message from sender:
>Although I strongly believe in "local first", meaning 1) your own garden
>2)your local farmers' market, this article makes some good points. There
>are good farmers in other locations that deserve to make a living. We need
>to find better wasy to assure that they get real value for their efforts.
>
>OPINION   | August 6, 2007
>Op-Ed Contributor:  Food That Travels Well
>By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
>Why imported produce may be better for the earth than local.
>