What is local?

Over at the Eat Local Challenge blog, there's a great article by Gary Paul Nabhan discussing local food.

Gary Paul Nabhan: Deepening Our Sense of What is Local and Regional Food

He makes a lot of good points, but his general thesis is that we need to think about what we're doing. Think about why we do it. It's easy for someone like me to just jump on a bandwagon because I like the sound of it or it "feels right" or seems to make sense. That's okay to start with, but at some point, I know I need to sit down and tell myself why I believe something is true or not.

I have a comment or two about a few of his points:

"3. The miles a food travels (“food miles”) must be placed in the size and volume of the mode of transport, its source of fuel, and its frequency of travel."

As long as we settle in cities, the farmers are going to have to get the food to us. Yes, we can have urban gardens, even rooftop gardens, but it would be a rare city that could grow all its own food within urban limits. Even buying food at the farmer's market from a farmer 20 miles outside of town will require some transportation. Most farmers drive hundreds of miles everyday to various markets in a given region. It's still "local" by our definition, but there's a lot of fossil fuel put into it, anyway.

"4. On farm energy and water use matter. If a farm near Tucson Arizona is irrigated from a canal that transports Colorado River water hundreds of miles (and at high ecological cost to wild riverine species), or if it uses fossil groundwater set down during the Pleistocene pumped by fossil fuel set down in Iran during the Pennsylvanian era, what is to be gained by promoting its food?"

This one is near and dear, since I was born in Tucson and lived there for 35 years. It's a desert, folks. Eating local in a place like Tucson requires some real effort. And we need to be honest with ourselves: these places were NOT meant to support large populations. I don't care if you do like the sunshine. If you insist on living there, learn to like jicama, dried beans, and pear cactus. That's what the area can support.

"5. Other on-farm inputs matter just as much. Where are the sources of hay for livestock, compost for garden crops or nitrogen for field crops? They should be locally if not regionally-sourced. Why call lamb locally-produced in Idaho when its flock has wintered part of the year in California and its hay comes in from southern Colorado?"

This is a good one. Now I think it's traditional for ranchers to move the herd from one locale to another. That's what cattle drives are. But is it "natural?" Is it sustainable? Dunno. What about our own sheep and cattle in California that are grass-fed? What do they eat in the summer when the grass is dead and brown?

"6. Fair-trade with other cultures, localities and regions is fair game. "

I think it would be a sad world, indeed, if we did away with trade, altogether. Trade has always been the engine for human interaction, for exploration, for expanding our knowledge of each other and the world. So someone is always going to grow something that is needed someplace else. Spices. Coffee. Maple syrup (please don't make me give up maple syrup)!

Maybe what I want is the romantic vision of the trader coming into town and setting up on market day, visiting with people and participating in the local events that happen there, and talking about his home and life. We lose this with our sterile, effecient middleman procedures, when the food is shipped to a central warehouse and sent from there to stores around the country. We don't get to meet the trader or grower and talk about life in that place or life in our place. Our food becomes empty.

And that's sad.