In this last installment of “the 100-mile diet vs. world hunger,” I want to discuss the third piece to my elongated response - the globalized food system. Throughout this multi-post reaction I have tried to articulate the benefits of eating local and seasonal. The issues at hand – geographic inequality, nutrition and the global economy – are HUGE topics to cover in the span of 3 blog entries. And yet I was intrigued by the perspective of a friend and saw this as a good opportunity to explore some of the deeper issues that underlie the ideal of eating foods that are locally sourced. As this blog continues to develop, I promise you these topics will return again and again. In some ways these long, academic-esque posts are the beginnings to the larger debate on reforming our food systems. Today’s post will examine just that: the globalized food system.
The question at hand is the following,
…if all people in rich countries followed a 100 mile diet- what would happen to the farmers in south america, africa and asia whose lives depend on the ability to export their produce to wealthy markets?
The first thought that comes to mind regards local vs global economies. On the one hand, eating the 100-mile diet supports the work of local farmers, promoting employment opportunities to rural and urban communities. At the same time, the growth of the local economy comes at the cost of hurting foreign farmers. It’s troubling to consider this conflict of interest. As much as the media loves to espouse America’ role in foreign “developments,” we have to wonder, ‘at our expense?’ I think an important piece of sustainability is the need to be self-reliant. If America or other industrialized nations became ‘self-reliant,’ this would have disastrous effects on the developing countries.
That said, I do not believe our leaders will ever take the country to this extreme. And yet, as the local food movement grows and popularity ensues, the question will continue to arise. Take for example, the the historian James McWilliams. A connoisseur of controversy, this summer McWilliams published a work called Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. Even more recently, he has been a guest writer on the New York Times‘ Freakonomics blog. As you can read here, McWilliams is critical of locavores (100-mile eaters) as if they represent a normative consumer group in America’s diversity of shoppers. To me, it’s upsetting that academics like McWilliams are taking the time to criticize a relatively small movement, a movement fighting against a deeply harmful and widespread industrial food system.
To return to the main issue here, the globalized food system is clearly in need of reform, how exactly that will happen is an ongoing debate. As much as I may hope, I do not think the entire population of this country will submit to the 100-mile diet. As much as I may desire this, I am doubtful that our nation has the capacity to grow that much food. (But I would love to be proven wrong!) That said, one of my strong desires is for the subsidization of monoculture farming to stop, and for that same amount of money to be subsidizing small farmers practicing rotational grazing and/or biodiversity and permaculture. If sustainable food systems is the goal, then lets export our technologies and farming practices to farmers in South America, Africa and Asia. Let’s enable farmers in these other countries to sustain themselves too!
Why does food have to be a commodity on a global scale? Let’s suppose everyone in the world ate a 100-mile diet and survived, could economies survive on other means of profit?
Related posts:
- The 100-Mile Diet vs. World Hunger (part 1)
- The 100-Mile Diet vs. World Hunger (part 2)
- The Menu Consultant
- New Voices on Good Man Eats
- Good-Man-Eats Goes “Food Publisher!”
Tags: Food Politics, local food movement
Having read all three installments of your debate regarding the local food movement versus global agribusiness, I find myself where I always do: seeing both sides of the argument clearly enough (or so I think) that I remain uncommitted to either one (let me state now that this is through no fault of your rhetoric to convince me).
First off, I am no nutritionist, economist, agriculturalist or sociologist; I merely eat food. But on top of being a consumer, I happen to be a historian, and I think that your argument that pre-globalized societies (shall we place this around the 14th century for a more accurate debate?) were able to garner all the nutrients they needed through local foods is faulty. I believe major leaps in human health were made in major agricultural transitions, one of which was the access to a greater array of foods via sea trade. On top of that, a globalized network of food trade *allowed* for future expansion and development (here I am thinking of English sailors and limes; unable to keep perishable foodstuffs high in vitamin C on ships for months of travel, sailors were subject to bouts of scurvy. The introduction of limes to sailors’ diets — certainly something unable to be grown in Great Britain — allowed for longer sea excursions, which led to exploration and colonization and to the modern world as we know it, for better or for worse. Now, if you think that the sailors just should have stayed at home and eaten their kale and never conquered half the globe, I can’t really argue any further). Only a severe isolationist policy would have arisen from a continuance of local food consumption, which touches upon the economic aspect of your debate even today. Like in anything, I apply Aristotle’s wise words to this: everything in moderation. The local food movement does serve its purposes: it supports local agriculture; it trains our diets and our health to rely on seasonal foods and makes us more aware of what we eat and how we fuel our bodies; and it has positive repercussions for the environment on the whole. These are all very good things. But the globalized system serves its purposes as well, and I suppose all I mean to say is that to eschew one for the other would be an extreme, and with extremism is ignorance, in my opinion.
I don’t believe I have added much to this debate; I really want to shy away from the economic aspect of the globalized food market and focus on the health aspect of eating locally. As much as I partake in this *to a certain degree* I will admit here and now that, given my own personal experiences, I do not believe in a rigorous local diet unless you live in California or some other bountiful land. I spent one winter in Hungary, during which my foods consisted mostly of root vegetable and cabbage. The only fruit I could buy at this time were oranges shipped from North Africa. I had never been plagued with so many illnesses in my life, and found myself popping Vitamin C supplements every day — which I never do in America. I also found it interesting that the majority of Hungarians seemed to be accustomed to taking vitamin supplements, especially Vitamin C tablets in winter. This fact alone goes to show that limited food resources to adversely affect modern standards of human health, and that “outside” nutrients are gotten one way or another — either from importing fruit or from laboratory-made pills. Your choice.