Time Magazine: Eating Local Is Better Than Organic
Time Magazine's current cover story is Eating Better Than Organic by John Cloud, in which he explores the debate between buying local and buying organic. Which is better for the food system, food grown by a small farmer locally or one grown by a big organic firm that uses large-scale industrial methods? Is buying local food that might have been treated with pesticides better for the environment than organic food that's been trucked, shipped and flown from far away, using up tons of fossil fuels? Which tastes better? Cloud asked Whole Foods CEO John Mackey for his opinion:
He told me that when he can't get locally grown organics--and even he can't reliably get them--he decides on the basis of taste. "I would probably purchase a local nonorganic tomato before I would purchase an organic one that was shipped from California," he said. He called the two tomatoes "an environmental wash," since the California one had petroleum miles on it while the nonorganic one was grown with pesticides. "But the local tomato from outside Austin will be fresher, will just taste better," he said.
Cloud goes on to check out restaurants dedicated to local ingredients, like New York's Blue Hill which sources 80% of their food from within the New York region, or the free restaurant at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA called Café 150, which only uses food produced within 150 miles of them, as well as joining a Community Supported Agriculture, which lets you subscribe to a local farm and receive fresh produce every week or month.
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4 Comments:
I did some work a few years ago with Rutgers U. and New jersey farmers on this very issue. Buyers at restaurants & hotels were usually buying price, regardless of source. Princeton dining halls were insisting on organic greens trucked in from California, over local South Jersey options. The website "www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu" is a good reference to local initiatives in the garden state.
biscuitbaker at 2:57PM on 03/05/07
This comment of John Mackey's confuses me. I just saw him speak last week and he was very convincing in his argument for supporting organics from third world countries over local produce, helping to eliminate poverty and hunger globally. As for the petroleum issue, he sited an example that there are less CO2 emissions produced when a Californian buys rice grown in Bangladesh than when they buy California rice. I am still trying to figure that one out. I believe he was quoting Peter Singer. Well, I still haven't see the Cloud article; maybe it's clear there.
Leslie Pave at 6:22PM on 03/05/07
I appreciate John Cloud’s dilemma, but there are some misconceptions that need correcting. Growing organic foods in humid climates is not necessarily expensive or difficult, but requires a new kind of expertise one might call ‘Beyond Organic.’ When soil fertility issues are addressed skillfully, based on knowledge that is not widely know, the taste and nutritional quality of the produce is superior. Pests, which are nature’s garbage crew, doing away with inferior plants, are not attracted to these superior plants, so pesticide are not needed. But in humid areas, such as Eastern U.S., minerals in the soil are depleted by production and washed away by rain, so the soil must be carefully re-mineralized to attain superior fertility. When local organic farmers learn these new techniques, they will produce excellent produce that will command a premium price, and our local organic producers will flourish.
Kris at 11:31AM on 03/06/07
I agree with John, After all the environmental facets of local vs organic arguments are put on the table, in the end it's Taste that matters the most.
I blog on local Hudson Valley foods and issues at http://thepersonalfarmer.typepad.com.
Maryanne at 3:06PM on 03/09/07