November 7, 2007 — Eating Local

Moving beyond a niche market, the local food movement faces some challenges
By Joan Coogan and Vanessa Sumo

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver released a book this spring, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, about her experiences eating locally in southwest Virginia. She, her husband, and two daughters spent one year eating only what they could grow themselves or buy from local suppliers, with the exception of a few "luxury" items such as coffee and spices.

Others have embarked on similar challenges. In 2005, a pair of Canadians went on a "100-mile diet" that drew substantial interest in the United States. Away from the limelight, however, more and more Americans are quietly filling their paper bags with food grown by local farmers.

Though precise numbers are hard to come by regarding the growth of local food, there are some indicators. For example: The number of farmers markets across the country, one of the main outlets for local food, has grown from 2,863 in 2000 to 4,385 in 2006, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Some are even calling it "the new organic." But can local food become as pervasive as organic has in the United States?

The taste of a fresh, locally grown tomato, strawberry, or melon is enough to win many over. Food grown locally can be picked at its peak ripeness and delivered to the consumer's table quickly, thus preserving its nutrients. Rich Pirog, associate director at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, says that there are three things that customers like about local food: freshness, taste, and quality.

Local food may not be necessarily safer than conventional fare, but food safety scares like e-coli have prompted people to inquire more about where their food comes from and how it was grown, a question that may be more easily answered by local food.

Even if a tomato from abroad or across the country can be made to taste as good as a locally grown one, there are other attributes which make that local tomato a completely different product in the eyes of its customers.

Local food consumers may also value supporting their local community, preserving farmland, and reducing the distance food travels from farm to plate. A locally grown tomato that travels fewer miles may get the vote of groups concerned about the environment. (Whether transporting local food burns less fossil fuel is still an open question, because moving smaller amounts of food in a larger number of vehicles might be a less efficient use of energy.)

Because of this bundle of attributes, local food has to be produced locally to be true to its name. This is quite different from organic, which can be produced anywhere as long as it is free from pesticides and hormones. (And even then, organic foods account for only about 3 percent of U.S. food sales.)

That presents some challenges for local food to get into the hands of consumers. Supermarkets may not want to be bothered with the smaller volumes offered by local farmers or they may want certain produce year-round, which a large food distributor can source from anywhere, typically from large producers.

"It's just a convenience for a grocery store to tell [distributors] that we want this many pounds of this kind of produce each week, and they're going to get it for them regardless of where they have to get it," says Blake Brown, an agricultural economist at North Carolina State University. The same goes for other large buyers of food like restaurants, schools, and hospitals. However, some supermarkets are starting to stock their fruits and vegetable sections with local produce.

Finding a place to process local food can be another obstacle. "A big part of what is needed is local infrastructure that we've lost over the last 50 years as agriculture has become larger and more concentrated," says Nancy Creamer, a horticultural science professor at North Carolina State University.

In North Carolina, for instance, there are very few places for a small farm to get animals slaughtered and processed, Creamer says. Apples are important to West Virginia, but it may be hard to find companies in the state that can turn those into products like applesauce. "If we're talking about getting [local food] into the mainstream and into people's hands, then where are they going to process those products?" asks Cheryl Brown, an agricultural economist at West Virginia University.

Whether local food will enter the mainstream also depends on the willingness of consumers to modify their diets to incorporate more local food. While there is arguably a sufficient variety of organic food throughout the year, "locavores" will eat mostly what is in season and grown in their area. This may seem restrictive, but a farmers market can reveal varieties of fruits and vegetables that are hard to find in a supermarket. But farmers markets aren't usually open during the winter.

Also, there is no precise definition of what local is, and that might confuse some local food shoppers. Some say it is food grown within 100 miles; others place the boundaries within the state or region. While there is a national, fairly well-defined definition of "organic," the same can't be said for local. "I can't imagine the USDA creating and enforcing a definition of local," Cheryl Brown says.

But perhaps local food is destined to be small. Trade yields gains because goods are produced in regions and countries with a comparative advantage. This typically ensures the lowest price for a commodity, and so most consumers will probably reach for that less expensive tomato grown thousands of miles away. Also, some may see local food as supporting the local farmer at the expense of farmers in other countries. That might be an uncomfortable fit with the preference to see the lots of poor people around the world improved.