Willow Knight
High School Junior
November/December 2024
The locavore movement is an initiative started by people who want to be healthy, live sustainably, and want their food fresh. This is a great idea in theory, but there are many downsides to this movement. This movement may not directly impact the local community but it will impact the global community. One thing wrong with the movement is that transportation is not what creates most of the greenhouse gasses. Additionally, people in isolated communities or cities may not have access to locally produced foods. Lastly, and most importantly, is the issue of what is considered local.
The main focus of the locavore movement is to eat closer to home. This means supporting local farmers and small food producers. This is a great thought, however, it negatively affects people that are outside of the community. In source C the article states how most of the green beans in the UK are imported from countries like Kenya. The article also states that “—it’s also true that a campaign to shame English consumers with small airplane stickers affixed to flown-in produce threatens the livelihood of 1.5 million sub-Saharan farmers.” This shows how the locavore movement may have a slight positive impact on one community yet have a devastating impact on another. Another key issue is the faulty claim that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, transportation is not a significant factor in greenhouse gas emissions from food production. Mcwillins states that “One analysis, by Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, showed that transportation accounts for only 11% of food’s carbon footprint”. This shows how transportation is not a main component in greenhouse gas emissions. This is broken down further in the graph of Source D, which indicates that most of the greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of the food itself.
Another issue present is the lack of locally produced food in certain environments. An example of this is how people in cities do not have access to locally grown foods because of the lack of resources and proper environment to grow them. The author states, “The same economic forces that helped food production become centralized and regionalized did the same thing to our population: in the United States, 80 percent of us live in large, densely populated urban areas, usually on the coast, and typically hundreds of miles, often thousands of miles, from the major centers of food production”. This quote explains how people in dense urban areas do not have access to locally produced food, which in turn makes it almost impossible to follow the locavore movement. Although it is important to eat sustainably, it is equally as important to realize that eating locally isn’t always sustainable. In Source F the author poses the question of what exactly is considered local: “Does food need to be purchased directly from the producer? Does it still count when it’s distributed through a mass marketer, as with Wal-Mart’s Salute to America’s Farmer program, which is now periodically showcasing local growers?” This shows the many questions that ask what truly counts as local. Both lack of access and questions of what is considered local are key flaws within the locavore movement.
In source G the author uses a comic strip to point out the inadequacy of available resources for the locavore movement. This comic depicts a penguin and a snowshoe hare talking about the locavore movement. The penguin tells the hare to go get foods that have only been grown within 100 miles of them. The next slide shows that the setting of the comic is in the arctic. Then the hare comes back with foods that they would not have access to because of their geographic location. This is a humorous way of expressing how people in isolated areas do not have access to the proper resources to eat locally. This comic strip also poses the question of whether grocery stores are considered local by including the quote, “The supermarket is only a mile away”. Those who favor the locavore movement would say that grocery stores are unhealthy and do not count towards the movement. However, in Source B, Marion Nestle, a
professor and former chair of public health at NYU states, “That doesn’t mean it is necessary to eat locally in order to be healthy. In fact, a person making smart choices from the global mega-mart can easily meet all the body’s needs”. Nestle is a supporter of the locavore movement, yet she also understands possible constraints people have to face when trying to eat locally, especially in climates that don’t allow it.
The locavore movement focuses on eating healthy and local. This movement seems like it would have a positive impact but in reality, it tends to do the opposite. A key issue with this movement is the negative impact it has on farmers globally. Additionally, people in densely populated or isolated areas would not have access to locally produced foods and the focus of this movement is to cut down on food mileage when this is not a significant issue. Ultimately, creating a locavore movement in a community would not have the intended positive effects.
Source A: Maiser, Jennifer. “10 Reasons to Eat Local Food.” Eat
Local Challenge. Eat Local Challenge, 8 Apr. 2006.
Web. 16 Dec. 2009.
Source B:Smith, Alisa, and J. B. MacKinnon. Plenty: One Man,
One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally.
New York: Harmony, 2007. Print.
Source C:McWilliams, James E. “On My Mind: The Locavore
Myth.” Forbes.com. Forbes, 15 Jul. 2009. Web.
16 Dec. 2009.
Source D:Loder, Natasha, Elizabeth Finkel, Craig Meisner, and
Pamela Ronald. “The Problem of What to Eat.”
Conservation Magazine. The Society for
Conservation Biology, July-Sept. 2008. Web.
16 Dec. 2009.
Source E:Gogoi, Pallavi. “The Rise of the ‘Locavore’: How the
Strengthening Local Food Movement in Towns
Across the U.S. Is Reshaping Farms and Food
Retailing.” Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg,
20 May 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2009.
Source F:Roberts, Paul. The End of Food. New York: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Print.
Source G:Hallatt, Alex. “Arctic Circle.” Comic strip. King Features
Syndicate, Inc. 1 Sept. 2008. Web. 12 July 2009.
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