Thanks for writing. Looking back at my post, I realize now why it provoked the response from you it did but I don’t think we disagree (or that my original post is backwards). My meta-point is that locavorisim doesn’t scale to support agriculture for the burgeoning population of the planet. There are places, for reasons you have cited, like the Sudan, where global corporations have stripped the land of value and left populations that cannot provide food for themselves. Acknowledged. Point scored. But locavorism isn’t a solution to their problems. Something less ideal and not rooted in corporate greed (perhaps even anti-corporate) is required to address their problems. I’m not sure what that is but I suspect that it involves growing crops that can be harvested en masse and used to meet basic nutritional needs of large groups of people (that was the point I was making about agribusiness). Like it or not, and I’m mostly in the camp of the latter, agribusiness currently holds the keys to many high-yielding, full-nutrition crops. Until I see locavores growing their own foods and spices and shipping them all overseas to people who could get greater use out of them, I still think it’s a way to make people feel better about their habits without actually doing anything to short-circuit a broken system. Either that or start working on the overpopulation problem. Your choice.

P.S. We grow our own herbs, spices and lettuce. I love it.

It seems to me that you’ve gotten this backwards. Part of the reason the third world is the way it is, is due to a huge portion of agricultural lands in the third world being owned by 1st world multi-national corporations and the food grown there being exported to the first world.

Corn and soy beans are grown on slash and burned land in the Amazon to feed American cattle. Land that could support a native population (and produce a little trade) in a sustainable manner forever is used up and destroyed in a couple of years.

Mangrove swamps in SE Asia that could provide fish and timber for native populations are cut down and turned into shrimp and prawn farms for export and again they’re used up and the land is destroyed in only a few years.

Same deal with fisheries. The third world can’t police their waters so factory trawlers from companies like Tyson are free to invade their waters and wipe out their fisheries (that’s why we have Somali pirates).

I’m not against global trade, but as it is currently done it’s all gain for the first world and all pain for the third. Being as localvore and practical and making informed choices when buying products from the third world could go a long way in helping fix this trade/power imbalance.

While I tend to agree with you liberal friends, myself being one of them, that eating locally is probably the best for the environment and your health. There are many reasons for this, which I am sure you have been bashed with repeatedly, ie: less energy to transport food, know your farmer/know your food, genetic modification, etc. etc.

But I totally, completely agree with you that it is easy to be that way when your basic needs are taken care of. Moreover the problems which we face today, in my opinion, all stem from the same problem…overpopulation and limited resources. How does this have to do with eating locally. Well glad you asked…if you look back at the population growth of the US/global over the last 200 years you will notice that population began to grow more rapidly at 2 times. 1) Agricultural revolution and 2) Industrial revolution. Why? “evil agriculture business” was able to grow more food and transport it. The result is that the land can support more people. Without food transportation the way it is now, millions would die. Period. Not sure how your (being me) liberal friends would feel about everyone eating locally, and the result being massive deaths from starvation.

All said, I do eat as much as possible from local producers and organic, and I have a million reasons (OK would you buy 100) why. Which maybe we can discuss over a locally brewed beer!