• Common Ground •

Should it matter how far your food travels before it gets to your plate?

'To Market,To Market...'

Did you know that as a CSA member, you are part of a global food movement!? That movement is the Local Food Movement, where community members make food purchasing and eating decisions based on the origin of the food. While “local” can mean different things to different people, from a 100 mile radius to a larger region or state, the basic principle is that by eating locally, you are able to support and help sustain your community’s local economy. Another benefit to eating locally is minimizing the distance food is transported to your kitchen table. Did you know that in North America, food travels an average of 1000 to 1500 miles to reach your dinner plate? Not only does that take a lot of oil and manpower to transport, but it requires that your tomatoes are picked weeks before they even reach your supermarket. That doesn’t make for the freshest, ripest and most nutritious foods. By eating locally, you are ensuring that you eat better, you eat seasonally, and the money you spend on food goes to your neighbors that grow your food (farmers!) rather than on fossil fuels and agribusinesses across the world. [The foregoing is from Just Food, thanks Paula]

What's the big deal anyhow? If food can be shipped more cheaply from a different state, or country doesn't economics dictate that as the better choice? Part of the answer has to be- if economics is what is most important about food then yes. OK, so, if economics has a place in considering the real expense and value of food regardless of your preference for conventional or organic, you have to dig into details to see the real picture. This is so complex that i'm just going to name some of the 'hidden' expenses that when considered from an economic standpoint only reinforce the unquestionable value of organic over 'conventional' production.

Health care costs are higher because the expense of good fresh nutritious food is not generally and widely considered as a foundation of wellness. Energy costs are up but are variously subsidized by the governments from which products are shipped. Packaging for long distance travel is generally more extensive than for local delivery. Increasing the waste stream from the packaging is clearly an unconsidered expense. Fumigation and other chemical treatments of storage areas that are not considered a treatment of the produce and fruit increases the expense in chemical use and residue impact.

Pesticide residue metabolites have been found in studies of people eating 'conventionally' farmed food and not in people eating organic food. No industry proponant will concede that there is any health risk involved but just wait until the body of evidence reaches critical mass as regards the residual impact on every aspect of our lives. The overwhelming use of petrolium products and derivatives throughout the American food supply.

When considering common ground; what do we have in common with a family in Senegal, or Venezuela, or Iceland, or Turkey, or Egypt, or Pakistan, or Viet Nam, or Fiji, or Japan, or any other place on earth?

We all must eat to sustain ourselves and the very human and social experince of sharing a meal that is prepared by someone especially for those who will eat it is something that is vanishing from America as equally as it is from those places where a huge meal for sustenance is prepared by aid workers for a starving population. What's the difference between a fast food joint that churns out tons of food for nameless 'consumers' and a gruel line in Darfur?

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