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The View from New York, By Ned GrothAmericans and Their Food, Part 2: Locally GrownMany Americans who buy organic foods do so because it is “locally grown,” as I told you in my first column. Of course, locally grown foods include more than just organic, and the movement to “buy locally” here has been growing robustly. In fact, a new word, “locavores,” was coined to describe people who “eat locally.” The term resonates so well with the times that it was chosen “Word of the Year” in 2007 by the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary. The chief reasons for buying food grown locally are to avoid environmental and energy costs of shipping foods long distances, and to support regional family farms. American locavores have many choices, including food co-ops, community-supported agriculture, farmer’s markets, and more (reference). A US Department of Agriculture survey found that the number of consumers who buy from local sources grew 19 percent between 2004 and 2006. It’s still much smaller than the number who buy organic, but the trend is clearly up. As more consumers learn about reasons to eat locally and options for doing so, strong growth should continue. The “local food” movement arrived here in our little town of Pelham, in the New York City suburbs, this summer. A farmers’ market now visits our village green each Sunday. It’s a small operation – six or eight stands, each from a different farm or bakery. But it has been very popular. Most Sundays, if you don’t get there in the first couple of hours, all the good stuff is gone. This smashing success surprised me. Farmers’ markets are not cheap. On one Sunday here in Pelham, corn on the cob cost 50 cents an ear, peaches were $3.00 a pound. At farmers’ markets in New York City (there is one in Rockefeller Center, in the heart of midtown Manhattan!), corn was 75 cents an ear, peaches $5.00/lb. The same week, our local supermarkets and greengrocers were selling corn for 25 cents an ear, and peaches for 50 cents/pound. I’m a green consumer, but these prices make me buy selectively, at farmers’ markets. The brisk sales at our farmers’ market show that local locavores are serious about their food choices. Not coincidentally, the locavore movement here is most popular among wealthy, well educated consumers. Some environmental analyses challenge the assumption that locally grown is better for the environment. Sometimes the economies of scale of moving large food shipments long distances give New Zealand apples or California lettuce a smaller carbon footprint than the same food, trucked down to our area from upstate New York. Whether locavores are actually promoting sustainability can vary from case to case, it seems. I asked shoppers at our Pelham farmer’s market about such analyses. Most hadn’t heard about them, and those who had said other things mattered more to them, such as knowing the person who grew the food, not buying from a faceless corporation. My neighbors like talking to farmers about production methods. They find locally-grown foods to be fresher and taste better. And, Pelhamites believe these advantages are worth the extra cost. The current US government does not support the locavore movement; in fact, sometimes it impedes its expansion, given the excessive influence of agribusiness in Washington (reference). Of course, the ultimate way to “eat locally” is to grow your own. (There’s a coined word for that, too: “domestivores.”) I’ve planted my own vegetable garden for many years. We are harvesting tomatoes, squash, carrots and chives this summer from our 100-ft2 (~9m2) plot. With the recent steep rises in fuel and food prices, more Americans are trying to trim their food budgets by growing vegetables in their backyard But Americans are just so busy… who has time for all that digging, cultivating, weeding and watering? What’s that, you don’t? Well, just hire someone! No kidding! A company in San Francisco will now plant an organic garden in your backyard, weed and tend it, and harvest the bounty for you, all for a fee, of course. Even the lazy can be domestivores in America. The Bottom Line: The local-foods movement is small but growing vigorously here. So far it is mostly a middle-class phenomenon, and it’s not clear whether it always or even usually promotes sustainability. But locavores know what kind of society they’d like to live in, and those values are widely supported. The movement is here to stay. That’s my view on local foods, from here in New York. For more information: www.localharvest.org Ned, a biologist by training, worked for many years at Consumer Union, the US sister of Consumentenbond, and has advised WHO and FAO on food safety issues. It goes without saying that Ned and his wife, who live just outside New York City, adhere to the principles of CSR: Consumer Social Responsibility. Feel free to respond to this column at info@schuttelaar.nl. |
Ned Groth |
