Local, Organic, Fair Trade...

Here's an informative article from worldchanging.org

Eat Organic! Eat Local! Eat...What?

Erica Barnett
November 23, 2007 12:59 PM


First, we were all told to "buy organic" food because it's better for our health, and for the earth. Then we were told that buying organic wasn't enough, because organic standards vary from country to country (and even within countries), making it difficult to know what you're really getting. And then there are the greenhouse gasses emitted by shipping all that organic produce thousands of miles -- from China, say, to the United States. Those lengthy "food miles" obliterate much of the environmental benefit of buying organic in the first place.

So next we were told to buy locally produced foods (and organic, if possible), in order to eliminate those global warming concerns. Plus, purchasing food grown locally benefits small farmers and local economies, is better for air quality and pollution, and supports responsible land development. And it gives people weaned on supermarket food -- i.e., most of us -- a chance to taste food that's both seasonal and impeccably fresh. So "buy local" has become the refrain, and not just among hardcore sustainability advocates: "locvaore" was the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year for 2007.

But it turns out eating local can have unintended consequences as well. Recently proponents of strengthening fair trade markets in emerging economies have pointed out that the trend toward "eating local" may hurt farmers who depend heavily on overseas markets to make a living. As Walter Moseley, a geography professor who does research in Africa, wrote recently,

If the local food movements in Europe and North America reduce their demand for organic and fair trade products from afar, the most likely consequence is that African farmers who have entered these niche markets will return to producing their export crops in the conventional, pesticide-intensive manner. While local food markets can provide some income for these farmers, they still are reliant on export opportunities for the bulk of their cash income.

Food miles, then, are not the single most important measure of responsible food consumption; how our food choices shape local economies (including those thousands of miles away) may be just as important.

In the long run, solutions need to merge economic, social and environmental concerns -- for instance, international bodies need to make and enforce rules governing working conditions on farms worldwide, and promote organic farming practices through subsidies and other assistance (which have typically been offered to conventional agriculture through international aid and development schemes). But until those changes come, writes Walter Mosley, "it is a cruel joke to condemn developing world farmers to commodity crop production and then remove the only hope they have for higher returns -- organic and fair trade crops and products."

The United Kingdom Soil Association has attempted to address the inconsistency between promoting local consumption and supporting fair trade by requiring all organic food imported by air to meet fair trade standards, something we’ve covered in the past. However, this hardly addresses all fairly traded produce, because it still applies only to products that are certified organic. Traditional farmers in poor African nations use virtually no pesticides on edible produce; their crops are organic in all but name. But that name, when it comes to satisfying export regulations, is sometimes all that matters.

The solution, then, is to push for stronger regulations on working conditions and better assistance for farmers in developing economies. In the meantime, we would do well to eschew zealotry -- organic, locavorean, or fair-trade -- in exchange for a mix of all three. Throwing up our hands and buying out-of-season, conventionally grown and paid-for produce is far worse than choosing fair trade over local, or vice versa.