Posted on 07/03/2012 6:58:13 AM PDT by C19fan
Pierre Desrochers gleefully introduces himself as the bête noir of Canadian local-food activists. An economic geographer at the University of Toronto Mississauga, he has written a book (co-authored with his wife, Hiroko Shimizu), that attempts to eviscerate the movement’s main arguments, from its economic rationale to its environmental one. Even the book's title is an upper cut aimed at local food’s leading "agri-intellectual," the prolific Michael Pollan. The Locavore’s Dilemma, Desrochers has styled his counterargument, with this baiting subtitle: In Praise of the 10,000-mile diet.
A libertarian-leaning academic with a thick French-Canadian accent, Desrochers was in Washington, D.C., last week to present the book to what has undoubtedly been one of his friendlier audiences thus far, at the libertarian Cato Institute. He is particularly bemused by the notion that anyone would try to produce local food "when it makes no economic sense," when we have developed over the course of centuries an international and increasingly efficient system for feeding the world affordable bananas and blueberries and lamb year-round. Locavores – and their kind have popped up throughout history – have traditionally championed local food, he says, for no reason other than that it’s local.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlanticcities.com ...
Screw him. My tomatoes, grown in my backyard, taste better than anything sold in my local supermarket.
Does that mean that I'm trying to save the planet, or somesuch garbage? Nope. It just saves me a buck and it tastes better.
This weekend, I swung by a local roadside stand in the morning to get some corn. Made the comment that fresher tasted better, or somesuch.
The guy said, "Tell you what. Swing back by here at dinnertime. The field is over there. Go and grab yourself a dozen ears and leave the money on the table." Me: (grin!!!)
At dinnertime, I asked Mrs WBill to get the water boiling. I picked and shucked the corn and threw it in the pot. Jeez, that was good eating. I could have made a meal just on it.
Anyone that argues that apples from Chile or industrial chicken processors are better for the country don’t know what they are talking about. The next time you eat chicken, understand that 10% of what you are eating is fecal matter. And they feed chickens to chickens.
The family farm is what founded this country. If you support the constitution, then you by logical extension are a supporter of the buy local movement.
When you realize that Monsant bought Blackwater then you’ll begin to understand the grand schemes of the big agricultural firms and it makes obamacare look like romper room.
Just wait, you’ll be eating what they tell you to eat soon enough, then you’ll be begging to find a local farmer.
trucking food over 50 miles is insane.
Anyone that argues that apples from Chile or industrial chicken processors are better for the country don’t know what they are talking about. The next time you eat chicken, understand that 10% of what you are eating is fecal matter. And they feed chickens to chickens.
The family farm is what founded this country. If you support the constitution, then you by logical extension are a supporter of the buy local movement.
When you realize that Monsanto bought Blackwater then you’ll begin to understand the grand schemes of the big agricultural firms and it makes obamacare look like romper room.
Just wait, you’ll be eating what they tell you to eat soon enough, then you’ll be begging to find a local farmer.
trucking food over 50 miles is insane.
LOL! I've been known to do just that!
How do you grow tomatoes in NY, in February, outside of a greenhouse?
Knowing him, he just did it to give people something to talk about. :-)
Cute!!!
That is what the term “In Season” means. You buy “In Season” and can / preserve what you need to carry you over until the next “Season”...
Depending on how old you are, don’t you remember going with your mother to the grocery store and being pleased when specific fruits / veggies were available?
Sustainable farming means keeping the source and consumption fairly close to each other.
I’ll go you one better. If you don’t own a small family farm, you don’t believe in the Constitution.
There, see how easy it is to be silly.
“The next time you eat chicken, understand that 10% of what you are eating is fecal matter”
And 100% of that comment is bull sh#t.....
The local food movement is trivial but harmless. It is simply another manifestation of the lunacy that seems to come up to the surface from time to time.
Unless you believe in globull warming, eliminating fossil fuels and ending the free market system you are not a Locavore and he is not referring to you.
If you are like me and buy local/grow your own for freshness, quality, taste and variety then you are just someone with good sense, not a Locavore and not the subject of this book.
Ever tried canning lettuce?
There is one good reason for local food.
Over the seasons, you will have some plants that do good, some not-so-good, and some will grow like there’s no tomorrow.
I harvest some of the seeds from the ones that do real good, and you end up with strains that are well adapted for whatever your local conditions are.
I have enough cabbage seed, lettuce seed, acorn squash seed to choke an army of goats!
This year I have a bunch of tomato plants starting from the green, unripe ones from last year. So I will try to save seeds from them.
It’s kind of an anti-hybrid approach.
Sounds like you are having fun! You are becoming a bit of a botanist!
It is interesting. And you get to eat the results!
Here in the PNW, the growing season can be short. And damp. One of the things I noticed is that store-bought starter plants can be prone to get various funguses, etc.
Plants from seeds I have grown in the past have a MUCH higher resistance to the bugs and various molds, etc.
The author is a tool for the free traitors and global communists.
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