Local food is right up there with organic as a favored philosophy for health advocates and environmentalists, but it is not without critics. Some say that the economics of going local are not practical. Is it true?
Is Local Food Too Expensive?
Critics of local production often claim that it is too expensive compared to large scale, industrial operations. What often goes unmentioned is that industrial agriculture is heavily subsidized. According to the US Government Accountability Office $20 billion in tax-payer money goes to agriculture every year1 and the vast majority of this money goes to large-scale operations.23 In other words, industrially produced is not actually cheaper. It is paid for up-front through taxes.
Does Industrial Ag Feed The World?
The efficiency of large scale farming operations has value and a role to play in feeding the world. However, because it can be the largest producer does not mean it should be the only producer. Especially in the developing world, it can be more efficient to turn to local production than to deliver factory farm produce from across the globe. That is because flooding the market with cheap (or free) foreign food destroys local ability to compete and thus delays recovery and development of their own food system.4
Is Localism Protectionism?
If we focus on local, are we not hurting people in other areas by denying them access to American money as well as to cheaper crops that we have in surplus? We think it is worth asking – if $20 billion annually can go to subsidizing industrial agriculture, could it not also be invested directly in other places and for other options? Perhaps, rather than shipping subsidized grain overseas, we could invest in helping to build agriculture and infrastructure in developing countries?
Go Local
We may need industrial agriculture for its efficiency at producing large scale solutions to food security, and that is ok. But markets take notice of consumer desires and consumer desires can shift policy. When you decide to go local, producers arise to meet that demand, and they can then become an equally powerful part of the whole. Going local is simply asking for a shift in priorities, which can help to create a more balanced global food system.
Related
3 Ways Local Is Better, Just Not How You Think
Additional Resources
Lappé, Frances Moore, and Joseph Collins. World Hunger: 10 Myths. New York: Grove, 2015