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May 19, 2006
Buy local or buy organic?
I have read a number of articles lately about the food consumer's dilemma - do I buy local, or do I buy organic that comes from a distance. My blog-followers will guess that I will leap for the local, but we all know things are not that simple. I feel it is important to help local farmers to stay in the farming business, but we all have to live with the current, petroleum-fueled economy.
That economy insists on moving food long distances. A couple of days ago, Grist magazine http://www.grist.org/ (you should bookmark Grist and read it regularly) ran an article http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2006/05/18/fromartz/index.html about the personal conflicts involved in grocery shopping. I like the message at the end of the article: take it easy; shop as sustainbly as you can, but don't go crazy.
One of the precepts of Building for the End of Oil is that we have to live in the current economy, while we prepare to transition as smoothly as possible into the post-petroleum economy. Farmers have to do the same. If keeping the local farm going requires a farmer to work with Whole Foods in a petroleum-fueled supply chain, what's the problem? The goal is to keep the local farm going, so that it is there to provide local food when the supply chains fall apart.
There's a related issue -- biofuel feedstock production -- that I will address in the next entry.
Posted by aquacura.com at May 19, 2006 09:48 PM