Sustainable Shopping: Pros and Cons of Local Food
I bought local kernels, but did I really need to?
A lot of people praise shopping locally as the gold standard of sustainability. In this post, I'll give you my perspective on the pros and cons of a locavore diet.
What is local eating?
The answer to this question might seem obvious at first glance: eating locally means only eating foods that were produced and sold near you. But this question becomes dang complicated when you consider that each person has a different definition of "near" or "local." Does local mean within 50 miles, within your home country or within your home continent? No one has the answer, and personally, I don't think anyone should try to create an answer.
The costs and benefits of eating locally, and the distance at which those costs and benefits exist, will vary depending on a million different factors. This means that the issue really can't be boiled down to a simple "eating food grown within 100 miles is good." It really depends on the food and the place. In this post, I'll tell you the pros and cons of local eating efforts and the local mindset, considering a few different definitions of local along the way.
Pros
Local EAting Encourages Learning about food
If your version of eating locally involves talking to farmers in your area or starting your own garden, it can help you learn a heck ton about gardening, agriculture and food production in general.
Just knowing more about ag and food production can be really valuable in helping you make smart food choices, feel good about the food you eat and care more about your environmental impact (even in non-food areas of your life). If everyone knew their local farmers a little better, had more contact with plants or paid a little more attention to where their food came from, I truly believe the world would be a better place. The local mindset encourages this type of learning.
Local Eating Encourages talking to local farmers
Whether it's yourself or someone in your area, "local" farmers are likely easier to contact than anonymous farmers on the other side of the country, depending on your definition of local, of course. You could ask the farmer if they grow organically, or you can ask what types of pesticides or fertilizers they use, or you can ask how they treat their animals...the list of questions is endless really.
Like I explained above, knowing this info can help you feel more empowered with your food choices and learn more about food production and agriculture, which is bomb. You’ll also be able to support these small farmers financially, which many people argue helps grow the local economy and connect the local community.
Local food is probably fresher
Producing your own food or buying food that was produced in your area usually means that the food will be fresher when you eat it because it won't have to travel as far to get to your plate. Fresh food generally has more nutrients than food that has been sitting around and as an added bonus, freshly picked food is tastier than food that has been artificially ripened or jostled around in a truck.
Of course, the freshness of your food depends on if it was being kept in storage and how long it was sitting on your counter or in your fridge. But normally, eating locally will lead to eating fresher, scrummier and more nutrient-dense foods.
Pro/con
Local eating May or May not be better for the environment
Okay, so this one has a big caveat. If your definition of local is producing food in your own backyard, then eating locally can definitely decrease the amount of energy required for your food to get to you. You can simply walk into your garden rather than driving your car to get produce that was shipped to the grocery store or driven to the farmers market.
However, if you're driving out of your way to find the nearest farmers market, this might not be saving many emissions compared to foods shipped in bulk to grocery stores. This is because in addition to the miles you travel to reach the farmers market, each farmer also has to drive their produce a certain distance to reach the market. All these separate trips could add up to about the same distance as a single truck delivering produce in bulk to a supermarket.
But again, this will vary hugely depending on your location and the foods' location. If the produce in your grocery store has traveled halfway across the world or has made 5 different stops before coming to the store, driving a few extra miles to find more locally grown food could be much better for the planet. In other cases, it might not be.
One study also found that transportation accounts for only 11% of the energy used in agricultural production. This suggests that your foods' place of origin is only 11% of the problem, so other majorly emitting processes, like creating fertilizers and pesticides and raising cattle, might deserve a lot more of your attention. For example, rather than spending all your time searching for and buying local food, you could try to scale down your meat consumption or lobby for more sustainable large-scale farming practices.
Cons
Local eating can be elitist
Unless you live next door to a farmers market that's open year-round, eating locally can require some serious hunting and some extra cash. Not everyone has the time to scout out the most affordable CSAs in their area, drive to the most bougie grocery store in town or search for the closest produce stands.
Not to mention, local produce can be (but definitely isn't always) more expensive. Whether that means driving a few extra miles to get to the farmers market or shelling out some extra cash for the freshest produce, the locavore diet can be expensive. When you combine the time, effort and cash required to be truly locavore, this diet just isn't possible for a lot of people.
Local Eating limits food options
Plain and simple, limiting your food consumption to a certain geographic range will seriously limit the foods you can eat. Not every food can be produced in every place, so if you live in a place with cold winters and no local greenhouses, you could be stuck eating potatoes from storage for 60 dinners straight. This is a bummer not only because it’s boring, but also because diet diversity makes your gut bacteria happy.