Local Foods Advocates Fight Back

Pierre Desrochers (co-author of the excellent book The Locavore's Dilemma: In praise of the 10,000 mile diet) alerted me to this paper just published in the journal Agriculture and Human Values by Helen Scharber and Anita Dancs.  The authors asks, "Do locavores have a dilemma?"  The authors take issue with the sorts of arguments made by folks like me, Pierre, and a host of economists and other writers.  They write:

“Local food critics have recently argued that locavores, unaware of economic laws and principles, are ironically promoting a future characterized by less food security and more environmental destruction. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which mainstream economics discourse is employed in arguments to undermine the proclaimed benefits of local food. ”

The article provides an excellent literature review of the case against local foods (even if they did miss my article on the topic with Bailey Norwood in Library of Economics and Liberty).   But, ultimately, I find their case against the case for local foods unsatisfying.  

In the end, they seem to conclude that the typical economic critique ignores power dynamics, externalities, and choice.  In other words, "big food" is warped by capitalism that generates market power and externalities, and local food is a solution to these evils of capitalism.  

They argue that local foods are not an either/or and they should exist alongside other markets in a way that increases availability and choice.  I agree!  As I've said many times: I'm not against local foods, I'm against bad arguments for local foods.  And, I'm against government policies that subsidize local food activities.  Why?  Precisely for the reason opposite of that argued in this paper: I see no compelling evidence that local foods meaningfully internalize any of the important adverse externalities associated  with food production.  Moreover, I don't see the local food movement as one that is anti-capitalistic: precisely the opposite! Lots of competition, innovation, competition and entrepreneurship is at the heart of the movement. Sellers who don't offer high quality, affordable products won't be at the farmers market for long, and those that do will grow bigger. Finally, what is it about local foods that meaningfully changes the power dynamic that so worries these authors?  Let's be frank, the local food movement has largely gained steam because it is desired by relatively rich, largely white Americans.  As Charles Mann put it in a New York Times interview:       

“if your concern is to produce the maximum amount of food possible for the lowest cost, which is a serious concern around the world for people who aren’t middle-class foodies like me, [local food] seems like a crazy luxury. It doesn’t make sense for my aesthetic preference to be elevated to a moral imperative”

I'll wrap up by pointing to this new paper I just came across published in the journal Appetite. The authors, "conducted a detailed cross-sectional assessment of all [farmers markets] in Bronx County, NY, and of the nearest store(s) selling produce within a half-mile walking distance (up to two stores per [farmers markets]). The study included 26 [farmers markets] and 44 stores." Here are the author's highlights and findings:

“•Farmers’ markets (FMs) may offer a means to get fresh produce into needy communities.
•But FMs operate overwhelming fewer months, days, and hours than nearby stores.
•FMs carry less-varied, less-common, more-expensive produce than nearby stores.
•FMs offer many items not optimal for good health (e.g., jams, pies, juice drinks).
•FMs might provide little net benefit to food environments in urban communities.”

XPrize in Food Security

The world faces important food challenges.  How do we incentivize researchers and innovators to address these challenges?  One option is through prizes.  Set a desired target outcome, and the first person (or team) to achieve the outcome wins a sizable monetary prize.  

Xprize is an organization seeking to apply this model to a variety of applications.  They are now floating the idea of a prize related to food security .  Here's the motivation 

“With the growth of the world’s population, and the negative effects of climate change, the demand for food will become increasingly greater, putting our food security at risk. With nearly 70 percent of the population living in urban areas by the year 2050, the distance between food sources and consumers will lengthen, further jeopardizing our food security. ”

While I agree with the first sentence, I'm not sure the 2nd one makes must sense.  We've been urbanizing for a century in the US, and food security in this country (at least for most people) has generally improved.  Nonetheless, research on these issues is worthwhile.  The good news is that there are many researchers working on precisely these issues.   Here's the sketch of possible prizes:

“Multiple prize concepts can be developed to help ensure food security. Depending on the prize designed, the winning team will a) produce the highest edible calorific output grown on a given piece of arid desert land using less than a TBD amount of water, fertilizer, and other inputs; b) create a “farm in a box” that provides enough caloric yield daily for a family of four using less than TBD water and other inputs, costs less than a TBD amount per year, and has a footprint of less than one square meter; or c) create a system that produces and delivers 10 crucial, predetermined micronutrients for human health in a sustainable manner at a cost less than TBD.”

TSE Economist weighs in on nutrient taxes

In the most recent issue of the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) Magazine (pg 8) features some work by Vincent Requillart and Celine Bonnet on ability of nutrient taxes (like soda taxes) to fight obesity. 

Soda and sugar taxes don't always have the anticipated effect:

“The fact that we take into account the way the industry and retailers react via their pricing decisions. Most research assumes that the tax is passed on to the consumer. There’s no reason that should be the case! Firms are not passive, they develop strategies. They can raise prices more than is strictly necessary to cover the tax or, on the contrary, reduce their profit margins so as to maintain their sales.”

The point out that the effects of a sugared-soda tax are small, and that the actual policy passed in France (taxing all sweetened drinks - even those with artificial sweeteners) would not be expected to reduce weight.

“Taxing all drinks, be they sugar-sweetened or light, is counter to health recommendations. In practical terms, the tax implemented does not reach its goal of reducing sugar consumption. It acts primarily as an instrument to increase the State’s budget revenue.”

They seem to favor voluntary arrangements between food companies and the government to reduce sugar and salt content.  Even still, in places like the UK, where such an approach has been taken, the effect appears to be virtually nil.

“Having said that, despite all the measures implemented, obesity has not been eliminated. ”

One of the challenges is the complexity of it all

“ In the case of food, defining what is good and what is bad when dealing with a large number of nutrients, is complex.What’s more, eating habits change very slowly.”

For a more in depth and academic treatment of the topic, you might check out some of the published work by these authors.

A farmer attends the food for tomorrow conference

Blake Hurst, a farmer from Missouri, attended the NYT Food for Tomorrow conference a couple months ago.  His entertaining take on the event is the subject of this article in The Weekly Standard.  A few snippets:

“I may be walking around, but I’m actually dead. I’m a zombie farmer.

I came to this conclusion after spending a couple of days at the Food for Tomorrow conference last November, held at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a farm, restaurant, and conference center a few miles north of New York City. Stone Barns is surrounded by a “working” farm, a self-described showplace for the “sustainable agriculture” that more than one speaker at the gathering referred to in reverential tones. The farm was built by the Rockefeller family and is now a sort of Potemkin village with geese. The first and most important rule of sustainable farming is to be sustained by one of the world’s largest charitable foundations. ”

He turns the tables with the following jest:

“Recently, the New York Times announced another 100 layoffs. The New Republic has essentially committed public suicide. Rolling Stone is enduring a rough patch. Subscription and advertising revenues are crashing all across journalism.

Perhaps those of us in agriculture could help out. Maybe convene a conference on the future of journalism? We could ask a few nutrition professors, a biochemist or two, maybe a plant breeder, some cattle feeders, a pig farmer, and, as our token journalist, the guy who gives the cattle markets four times a day on the radio. Our conference could call journalists names, damn everything they’ve done for the past 50 years as corrosive of the health of our culture, and recommend that the New York Times go back to using typewriters in a recreated newsroom from The Front Page.”

Farm of Tomorrow (from the perspective of 1954)

Here's a cartoon from Tex Avery in 1954 on the "Farm of Tomorrow" (skip to the 19:30 mark).  Interesting how we have changed in many of the ways suggested by the video, and how unhappy some people are about it.