From EcoReality

Eating Locally

by Shannon Cowan, Ecology Steward

Organics may be the new ‘black’, but ‘locavores’ take the reigns at the helm of the newest trend in food

We all know the basics of being a responsible “Green” citizen, one with global consciousness, one who “cares” about the environment and who is prepared to take action. However, these days in the mainstream -- let alone the ecovillage/communities movement -- it is no longer enough to ride your bicycle or reuse yogurt containers. Indeed, the newest emerging credo in “ethical right action” is to consume food produced nearest your home! This means food that was primarily (if not exclusively) produced in your local foodshed, if not in your own backyard.

While this may not have the same impact as never driving a fossil-fuel guzzling vehicle, or living off alternative sources of power, it will and does have a serious impact on global conservation of resources in the “peak oil” era, as well as reduction of greenhouse gases and climate change. Moreover, government research supports a need for re-designing local food systems.

Historical perspective

The not-so-“Green” revolution post World War II instilled a “productionist” worldview and lead to the creation of input-intensive, resource-degrading, subsidized agriculture in Nort America, Europe and other parts of the globe (Lang and Heasman, 2004).

During that era, the concept of foodshed was extended and blown so out of proportion, that those who produced coffee by the ton never even tasted their product, let alone tasted the bananas or cacao grown by their neighbours, because all the produce was destined for transportation up to 3000 miles from its origins. In the name of “feeding the masses” and promoting technological innovation, this type of agriculture and resulting food system was the dominant paradigm and it continued to gather steam.

Enter organics

Fast forward to the 1970s and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and one begins to appreciate the long term instability and energetic imbalances being fostered by the productionist food system worldwide. Out of several converging traditional forms of agriculture, as well as some new “alternative” and “ecologically-based” food system principles, the practice of an “organic food system movement” was born. Fast forward again to the end of the millennium, and see this movement gaining steam. In the mid 1990s, one of the more rapidly growing markets has been that of an “Organic” food movement in the developed world (Lang and Heasman, 124). As an industry sector, Organic has grown exponentially in North America and Europe in the last 20 years, and is projected to continue to do so. In Canada, this is the fastest growing food sector (20% per year compared to 4% in all other food retail sectors).

At all levels of the organic supply chain from soil to plate, stakeholders are working with government to improve regulations and secure export markets. Why? Because that is what industry growth is all about: scaling-up, catapaulting into the “big leagues”, and securing contracts to sell to multi-national corporations and otherwise export the produce off Canadian soils.

Organic + local = sustainable

While this might look like an economic achievement, (and it is!), there remains a different type of organic farmer in Canada – the kind who is philosophically bound to the biodiversity on which she is reliant, the kind who has no intention of “going bigger” or contributing to industry sector growth, but rather intends for more of her local communitarians to share her bounty, to better serve her soils by closing the loops and keeping crop residues on farm or in the region.

Many of the Canadian small scale organic growers are committed to an ideology and a reality that depends on ecological conservation, local capital, equitable prices for their foodstuffs, knowing the consumers of their food and sharing community with them, spending the time to grow, prepare and eat food grown in the soils and climate in which they live, and eating seasonally -- to name just a few tenets of this philosophy.

In his book “Cultivating Utopia”, Hetherington discusses the careful and, at times unstable, ground on which organic farmers in Canada are treading as they seek to create environmental sustainability within the political framework of the structured organic movement, all the while making a living! These ‘organic’ proponents of a thriving local economy are activists – achieving by their livelihood the creation of a foundation for the emergence of a new kind of activist consumer: the locavore.

Locavores disparage the dominant “productionist” economic food system that is increasingly aligned with the corporate mindset, irresponsibly increasing its margins as it decreases biodiversity, soil health, watersheds, human communities and local economies.

Since approximately 2003-2004, food production organizations, NGOs, energy action groups, and those in-the-know have begun campaigning worldwide for activism in our own kitchens, where many of the greatest life-sustaining and life-creating activities are prone to occur! Despite the recent “slow-food movement”, the average time spent annually in the sourcing, procurement, preparation, and consumption of foodstuffs in North American society is decreasing as technologies advance and the average citizen is distanced physically from the food supply chain.

Call to action

Let us call ourselves to action. We can learn more about the locavore movement (see some of the benefits below) and we can practice this consciousness in the food choices we make as growers, retailers, eaters and cooks. Go become a locavore!

Initiated by the 100 mile diet, the movement to source and consume only local foods is one of the newest answers to the food system crisis.

Pros & cons

• What are the benefits?
  • Fewer food miles (Average is 1500 miles, or 2414 km from field to plate)
  • Taste
  • Knowing exactly what is “in” our food
  • Social benefits of knowing those who grow local food and being socially involved in food culture
  • Trying new native plants and animals (eg. sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes, or one of the >200 varieties of apples grown in a single Salt Spring Island orchard)
  • Support local businesses, give back to the local economy (for every dollar spent locally, the total value is twice that of a dollar spent at a supermarket chain because of the additive effect of staying within the local system and being reinvested)
  • Personal health, community health, regional health and so on
  • Less fossil fuel and petroleum usage (upwards of 15 times less than a non-local diet)
  • Learning more about how life works
• What are the tradeoffs?
  • Having to let go of certain foods we are accustomed to/we desire
  • Spending more time sourcing, growing, preserving and preparing our food (which is actually a benefit if one considers the often hidden costs in terms of stress induced by the ways in which we spend time “working” and other activities in cultures of the developed middle class)
  • At times, the repetition of foods, meals and nutrients in the diet when networking and relationships and help in sourcing seasonal local ingredients are challenging

Alisa Smith and James McKinnon went public with their personal choice to eat foods grown within a 100 mile radius of their home in Vancouver, British Columbia.

For one year we ate only the freshest food that had traveled the shortest possible distances and was eaten or preserved at its seasonal peak. Most of it was organic, and everything we ate was prepared from scratch and nothing came out of a box.

Who wouldn't want to be able to say that? If the locavore movement is not tasty and ethical 'food for thought', I don't know what is.

References and further information

1. Lang, T and Heasman, M. Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets. Earthscan, 2004, 365 pp.
2. eat local challenge
3. Hetherington, K. Cultivating Utopia: Organic Farmers in a Conventional Landscape. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2005, 117 pp.
4. About the 100 mile diet

--Shan