Go Local, Young Man?

by David Steele, PhD (Originally published in the March/April 2007 issue of Canada EarthSaver)

Many of us are striving to reduce our negative impacts on this planet. We're opting to walk or bike or bus to work. We're replacing our incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent equivalents. We're endeavoring to eat foods grown close to home instead of those shipped from afar. And, generally, when it comes to choosing food, locally grown is indeed best. Generally. But not always.

The average piece of fresh produce purchased in North America has traveled thousands of miles to market. On average, over 15% of the energy expended in growing that fresh produce and getting it to your table was spent moving it from the farm to the warehouse to the store to you. The vast majority of that shipping energy could be saved if we were to buy only foods grown very close to our doorsteps. If your choice is locally grown organic produce, you cut the energy costs even more. Don't cook it, and more than double your energy savings.

And it's not just the energy that you're saving. Especially when you choose foods grown by small, local farmers, you're helping to keep them in business. The farmers are providing you the food and you're providing the farmers with the money they need to survive. And, in the long run, you're providing your community with the means to survive. As the fossil fuel supply declines over the next few decades, transporting food will become more and more expensive and difficult. Spending your dollars on local produce helps ensure that the farm lands around your community stay farm lands and don't become paved over, suburban developments.

But things aren't quite as simple as that. In the summer, it's easy. There's lots of local produce. All we need do is visit our local farmers' markets and take home our needs for the week. But what about winter? Are local greenhouse tomatoes a better choice or should we buy some trucked in from California? Strange as it may seem, the California tomatoes are probably the better choice, energetically anyway. It takes a lot of energy to heat a greenhouse, especially in places where the winter sun rarely appears. Probably twice as much oil was burned getting that greenhouse tomato to you.

If you want to eat local in winter, you're far better off eating root crops like carrots, parsnips and potatoes, and things like squash, nuts and apples that keep well after the farmer picks them. These were once mainstays of winter meals. As the oil runs out, they probably will become mainstays again. Local meat, by the way, is likely local only in that the animal was raised nearby. The feed that animal was raised on almost certainly came from afar. Meats are incredibly inefficient ways to get nutrition into our bodies. In terms of both fossil fuel and grain use, we do far, far better to consume the grains ourselves.

In places like Vancouver, there's another problem with locally grown food. There just plain isn't enough of it around. And some things - like grains, for instance - are essentially not grown here. If everyone here suddenly decided to eat only locally grown produce, the result would be mass starvation. There's limited farmland in our region and much of our most fertile land is under our streets and houses. Given time, we could reverse a lot of the damage that we've done and grow much more of our own food, but for now we have little choice but to more often than not buy from afar.

So, what can a person do?

• Of course, buy local whenever you can. If enough of us do so, the demand will entice farmers to increase the amount of land they cultivate and entice new people to take up farming. Choose organic where possible. Energy inputs and nitrogen runoff are both lower on organic farms. Shun greenhouse crops, though. In the long run, they're mostly unsustainable.

• Join a buyers' club. Neighbours Organic Weekly Buying Clubs (www.nowbc.ca) cooperate to buy directly from local organic farms. Not only will you increase your intake of seasonal local foods, through requests from the group you may even be able to influence what is actually grown by local farmers.

• Buy foods that are shipped in, never flown. Ships and trains are by far the most efficient means to move pretty much anything. Avoid products that need refrigeration, though. Refrigeration is a major energy hog. From a planetary health perspective, airplanes are an insane way to transport food. They use more energy per pound per mile than all but the very worst of the gas guzzling SUVs.

• Consider buying fair trade products from third world countries. Almost certainly they've arrived by ship and they help poor farmers make a living in a world that for them is generally a very hostile place indeed. It's a complicated issue, but redistributing some of our disproportionate wealth to the bulk of humanity is a tremendously worthy cause in itself.

• Grow some of your own food. Convert your yard to a garden. Find a plot in a Community Garden. You won't grow all you need by any means, but you'll be taking an important step towards food security and reducing your impact on the world to boot.