Local vs. Organic

Finally. A nice insightful, must-read article in slate.com discusses local versus big Organic labeled food sold at a certain posh supermarket chain: their example touching on the embodied energy in local tomatoes compared to certified Organic tomatoes shipped from Chile. This is something I've been grumbling about for a while (the misleading marketing that insinuates they're selling local small farmer products is the double-whammy). In fact, I'd like to take this energy thought a little further... is one more virtuous to eat apples grown and shipped from New Zealand and veggie frozen dinners from China compared to a happily raised turkey (or maybe even cow) from nearby in Pinckney, Michigan at Garden Patch Farm. In terms of embodied energy (arguably a proxy for the resulting global climate change impact) the first two exceed the last, in fact its probably not even close according to my calculations. Thus, an extreme example to think about, one should not make the blanket generalization that it takes less energy to make a veggie meal (or the standard raising grain takes less energy versus beef meme). In a pure local economy this can be true but today it depends on where everything has come from on the globe - the whole system in fact. Transporting alone has huge often hidden energy costs. It's not just what and how it was produced, it's where it's from. As per Eliot Coleman, Authentic food is what should be the ideal. (Hey, I'm currently looking for funding to use GIS to map local foodsheds. Anyone have any funding ideas?) And actually these thoughts can be applied to everything, not just food.

Happy bird named Ralph from gardenpatchfarm.com

Biased and shameless self-promoting plug: the author would like to note that it is always more virtuous to eat produce from Brines Farm. Always.