[Foodplanning] The Local Trap
Nevin Cohen
cohenn at newschool.edu
Mon Jan 8 22:35:10 PST 2007
If Born and Purcell had simply made the point that “the assumption
that the local is desirable does not always hold” and that planners
and activists must therefore do their homework or face unintended
negative consequences, most of us would have nodded our heads up and
down, and their article would have generated no controversy. However,
the authors went much further (further than is justified by their
evidence) by making provocative but unsupported claims: “that there
is nothing inherent about any scale,” and that “local-scale food
systems are equally likely to be just or unjust, sustainable or
unsustainable, secure or insecure.” (emphases added)
I feel compelled to respond to several of the points made in their
article:
Born and Purcell state that “the outcomes produced by a food system
are contextual: they depend on the actors and agendas that are
empowered by the particular social relations in a given food
system.” (p. 196) True enough. But as any farmer knows, the outcomes
also depend on factors that are not contextual: whether non-renewable
resource stocks (like petroleum) or flows (like solar energy) are
used, whether systems are vulnerable and risky or diverse and
resilient, whether they allow for genetic biodiversity or make our
ecosystem less robust, and countless other physical and biological
variables that are in turn dependent on scale and proximity as much
as, if not much more than, social relations. Indeed, the authors have
provided no theoretical or empirical evidence to support the
irrelevance of scale or proximity. That there are examples of small-
and local-scale food systems that are wasteful, unjust, or
economically disadvantageous does not prove that scale has no
substantive meaning or that small-scale farming isn’t significantly
better for the environment overall than industrial agriculture.
Their point about the importance of not confusing ends and means is
perfectly reasonable, as it is an intellectual trap that many people
(professional planners and policy analysts included) often fall
into. However, I would argue first of all that there is likely to be
a strong association between localization (the means) and the end
goals of sustainability, freshness, cultural identity, justice, etc.,
provided that the local farm is operating sustainably within the
local ecosystem. Second, their statement also assumes that local
food production is not a valid end in and of itself. Having a working
landscape surrounding our cities is important for all of the
multifunctional attributes that agriculture provides, but it is also
valid for planners and advocates to work towards a community that
includes farmland and farmers for the same aesthetic – even
intangible -- reasons one might want a community with pleasant
streets and waterfront access and good architecture and public art,
and seniors and poor people and racial diversity. Diversity in the
population, economy, and landscape – including a community with farms
and farmers – is a perfectly legitimate goal in and of itself.
The buy-local campaigns that Born and Purcell criticize are also
perfectly reasonable forms of social marketing, even if they make
general statements about the value of local food that do not include
caveats. Most social marketing campaigns leave out the fine print.
(Some smokers live to be 90, but we don’t hedge the Surgeon General’s
warning. Safe sex campaigns and recycling ads don’t split hairs,
either.)
Born and Purcell claim “the local trap can blind planners to the most
effective strategy for achieving desired ends.” But there is no
evidence that buy-local or farmland preservation campaigns have taken
any energy away from activism related to pesticide use, GMO crops,
humane treatment of animals, or any other strategies to make the food
system sustainable. This is not a zero sum game. Indeed, one can
argue that as a matter of strategy, introducing consumers to local
food and growing the local farm economy will grow demand for
sustainable agriculture and build a constituency for these other
reforms, not undermine more effective approaches to achieving the
goal of a sustainable and just food system.
Born and Purcell argue that “we never can equate a scalar strategy
with a particular set of outcomes.” But there are some outcomes that
are directly related to the scale of agricultural production: humane
animal husbandry; diversity of production; control; vulnerability;
energy efficiency; cultural diversity, etc. The relationships are
not necessarily symmetrical, however. It is possible for a small
dairy farmer to mistreat his cows, but a feedlot will rarely be able
to operate treating its livestock humanely. A Hudson Valley
vegetable farmer can grow insipid tomatoes, of course, but a large
scale operation in Mexico will find it very difficult to ship vine-
ripened heirlooms to NYC. And, contamination of a CSA’s vegetable
patch can sicken some and result in an economic loss, but that same
contamination in 10,000 acres of Central Valley cropland can have
devastating health, environmental, and economic effects. And, grass-
finished animal protein, which derives its energy largely from the
sun instead of petroleum, is limited to the productivity and scale of
the pasture in a particular place. There are simply some forms of
food production using sustainable practices (take the farming
practices of the Amish, for example) that are not scalable. And,
anecdotes do not prove general principles. Examples of how the local
may be inferior to the industrial or the global -- growing rice in
Arizona for the Tucson market, the exploitative farmer who mistreats
his workers, the local apple grower who uses lots of pesticides – do
not demonstrate that scale or proximity make no difference, or that
on average, the local isn’t better for communities and the
environment than most of what is produced by one of the four or five
companies that dominate each sector of food production.
Living within the scale appropriate for a given ecosystem, and as
close to the consumer as possible, is the only truly sustainable
method of food production. All other methods deplete the soil,
pollute the ground, and contribute to climate change through fossil
fuel consumption. While we can argue about what scale is most
appropriate for which locations and types of farming, the point is
that there most certainly is something inherent about scale, and we
can – with better data – equate a scalar strategy with environmental
outcomes. Scale is not “a fundamentally relational concept” when it
comes to biology and ecology. And like centralized energy systems,
massive dams, and other large-scale disruptions to our ecosystem,
excessive scales of agricultural production typically have
significant adverse environmental and social consequences that
smaller, distributed systems avoid.
Regarding the embeddedness of local consumer-producer relationships,
Born and Purcell suggest that food produced far away but labeled by a
third party could provide the consumer as reliable information as a
farmer at the market. Here they ignore the richness of the concept of
an embedded relation. Their limited notion of embeddedness revolves
around information, which I agree could simply be provided by an
ecolabel on a product produced far away. The trust that forms when
local exchange is face to face is not equivalent, however. It
provides benefits beyond the mere conveyance of information. It
leads to greater understanding of the local ecology and economy,
forges a connection to people and places within the foodshed, and can
change perceptions and behavior.
Nevin Cohen
The New School
New York City
On Jan 5, 2007, at 7:51 PM, foodplanning-
request at mailman1.u.washington.edu wrote:
> Send Foodplanning mailing list submissions to
> foodplanning at u.washington.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> foodplanning-request at mailman1.u.washington.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> foodplanning-owner at mailman1.u.washington.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Foodplanning digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. COMMUNITY FOOD PROJECTS 2007 GRANT CYCLE WILL BEGIN SOON,
> FREE ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE (Hugh Joseph)
> 2. JPER article (Joseph Nasr)
> 3. Re: JPER article (Janet Hammer)
> 4. Re: JPER article (Joseph Nasr)
> 5. RE: JPER article (Jill Rubin)
> 6. RE: JPER article (Jesse Richardson)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:01:35 -0500
> From: Hugh Joseph <hugh.joseph at tufts.edu>
> Subject: [Foodplanning] COMMUNITY FOOD PROJECTS 2007 GRANT CYCLE WILL
> BEGIN SOON, FREE ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE
> To: CFAP-L at cornell.edu, nefood at elist.tufts.edu, Community Food
> Security Coalition <comfood at elist.tufts.edu>, dsfs at elist.tufts.edu,
> urbanag at elist.tufts.edu, SNEEZE_L at EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU, Food Planning
> <foodplanning at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <459DA36F.3010608 at tufts.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: https://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/private/foodplanning/
> attachments/20070104/d0fa0c7c/attachment-0001.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:50:57 -0500
> From: Joseph Nasr <joenasr at compuserve.com>
> Subject: [Foodplanning] JPER article
> To: foodplanning <foodplanning at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <200701042351_MC3-1-D71A-6A77 at compuserve.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hello again,
>
> I received the following message, with access to the article
> that I mentioned.
> Best,
>
> Joe Nasr
> joenasr at compuserve.com
> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
> jnasr at ryerson.ca)
>
> -------------Forwarded Message-----------------
>
> From: Mark Purcell, INTERNET:mpurcell at u.washington.edu
> To: "bb >> Branden Born", INTERNET:bborn at u.washington.edu
> [unknown], joenasr
>
> Date: 04/01/2007 8:24 PM
>
> RE: (no subject)
>
>
> Joe,
>
> Hi. Mark here, Branden's co-author. If you want, you can post this
> link, which is to my website, for a pdf of the article.
>
> http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell/jper.pdf
>
> Mark
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Mark Purcell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Urban Design and Planning
> University of Washington
> Box 355740, Gould 410
> Seattle WA 98195
>
> Tel: (206) 543-8754
> Fax: (206) 685-9597
>
> http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:39:51 -0800
> From: Janet Hammer <hammerj1 at pdx.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Foodplanning] JPER article
> To: Joseph Nasr <joenasr at compuserve.com>
> Cc: foodplanning <foodplanning at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <5B21EA4F-6063-48AB-BF4D-D6E7F3D1EE0E at pdx.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; delsp=yes;
> format=flowed
>
> Many thanks for sharing the article! My membership to JPER lapsed so
> I was "Clueless near Seattle."
> I look forward to reading the article. On first glance it reminds me
> of a 2001 piece by Anne Bellows and Mike Hamm in Ag and Human Values
> titled "Local autonomy and sustainable development: Testing import
> substitution in more localized food systems" (http://
> www.springerlink.com/content/p5720r2p61480742/). Both articles find
> strong advocates for sustainable food systems challenging colleagues
> to clarify assumptions and improve theoretical rigor. One bottom
> line -- focus on objectives and outcomes rather than modes to get
> there. A similar debate has ensued via organic and non, small versus
> large, etc. Rather than saying, for example, small farms are good
> and large farms are bad, it is suggested that research, policy, and
> programs be framed around desired ends (e.g. soil quality, water
> quality, jobs, animal well-being, biodiversity, etc.).
>
> In the Community Food Matters (Portland, OR) program we were
> constantly wrangling with definitions and purpose with respect to
> sustainable regional food system work. Regarding sustainability and
> trade (scale) the following was offered in CFM documents:
> "Sustainable food products are made with attention to natural
> resource stewardship, human and community well-being, and economic
> viability. Decentralized local and regional markets are often
> suggested as part of a sustainable food system due to the potential
> to reduce environmental impacts of shipping and packing, promote
> local economic development, and reduce vulnerability of food supply.
> Trade remains an important component – both imports to satisfy needs
> and demands and exports of surplus or specialty crops; however, trade
> is considered within a framework of sustainability goals for the home
> community and the trade communities."
>
> Some of these issues were tackled in our recent working paper on
> Sustainable Regional Food System Assessments. I'm happy to email the
> PDF if anyone is interested. We are considering developing the piece
> into a journal article - feedback is welcome.
>
> Best to you all in the coming New Year. Your good work on these
> issues is appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
> Janet
>
>
> On Jan 4, 2007, at 8:50 PM, Joseph Nasr wrote:
>
>> Hello again,
>>
>> I received the following message, with access to the article
>> that I mentioned.
>> Best,
>>
>> Joe Nasr
>> joenasr at compuserve.com
>> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
>> jnasr at ryerson.ca)
>>
>> -------------Forwarded Message-----------------
>>
>> From: Mark Purcell, INTERNET:mpurcell at u.washington.edu
>> To: "bb >> Branden Born", INTERNET:bborn at u.washington.edu
>> [unknown], joenasr
>>
>> Date: 04/01/2007 8:24 PM
>>
>> RE: (no subject)
>>
>>
>> Joe,
>>
>> Hi. Mark here, Branden's co-author. If you want, you can post this
>> link, which is to my website, for a pdf of the article.
>>
>> http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell/jper.pdf
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> --
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Mark Purcell
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Urban Design and Planning
>> University of Washington
>> Box 355740, Gould 410
>> Seattle WA 98195
>>
>> Tel: (206) 543-8754
>> Fax: (206) 685-9597
>>
>> http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foodplanning mailing list
>> Foodplanning at u.washington.edu
>> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:03:01 -0500
> From: Joseph Nasr <joenasr at compuserve.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foodplanning] JPER article
> To: Janet Hammer <hammerj1 at pdx.edu>
> Cc: foodplanning <foodplanning at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <200701051003_MC3-1-D6AA-BA6A at compuserve.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Thanks Janet for getting this discussion started on a good
> footing. I look
> forward to hearing the thoughts of others on this.
> Joe
>
>
> Joe Nasr
> joenasr at compuserve.com
> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
> jnasr at ryerson.ca)
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 17:20:16 -0500
> From: "Jill Rubin" <jrubin at glynwood.org>
> Subject: RE: [Foodplanning] JPER article
> To: <foodplanning at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID:
> <BD4D583530A8864C834D5E0579C91E712727C6 at server2.glynwood.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hello,
>
> I just read Avoiding the Local Trap. I think it makes some good
> points
> (relevant to almost anything) that local should not be embraced
> without
> examination. And yes, academics and advocates often interchange local
> with other goals probably more often then we should. But, I am not
> convinced it is as big a problem or as neutral as the authors suggest.
>
> The loftier goals of sustainability, democracy, and social justice are
> very difficult to define and manufacture (ie. one of the major
> criticisms of both organic and fair trade labeling schemes is that
> they
> fail to capture the essence of social justice and sustainability by
> their inherent reductive approaches). Local is a tangible approach
> that
> sometimes, but not always, compliments these broader goals. I
> think the
> reason local has gotten a lot traction in the food movement is because
> it is not an idealistic concept but a physical reality (even if it
> is a
> socially constructed, relative, relational, and fixed reality). What
> makes local an effective organizing tool is that it is a hook. I
> think
> the challenge is that in defining a local food system, or community
> food
> system, as I prefer to call it, is in understanding the components you
> have, you don't like, and you want to change, and what side-effects
> that
> change will have...but this is not a critique of local, but a prudent
> approach to any endeavor.
>
> Another important feature of local is that it is "human scale." Local
> is something people can relate to, grab onto, and get to know. The
> one
> clear advantage local always has over broader geographic scales is
> proximity. When a New Yorker eats hamburger raised in California on
> mid-west feed, it is hard to know (except by books like Omnivores
> Dilemma) the environmental and social impacts. Local presents a much
> more feasible scale to understand the good and bad of the food system
> ie. my lake is nutrient loaded because of fertilizer run-off and I
> cannot fish there or I appreciate the aesthetic of farms on the
> landscape. I think the intimacy of a local food system is a very
> important feature of local...that you are buying tomatoes that are
> keeping a farm in production and preventing sprawl is not
> insignificant
> phenomenon of local food systems.
>
> My point is local is not a misguided approach, but it needs to be
> tempered with understanding of the diverse consequences and ultimate
> goals. And I would happily throw out the concept--"local food system"
> for a much more diverse and descriptive concept such as community food
> system...but there are plenty of problematics with "community" too...
>
> -Jill
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
> [mailto:foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of
> Joseph Nasr
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:03 AM
> To: Janet Hammer
> Cc: foodplanning
> Subject: Re: [Foodplanning] JPER article
>
> Thanks Janet for getting this discussion started on a good footing. I
> look
> forward to hearing the thoughts of others on this.
> Joe
>
>
> Joe Nasr
> joenasr at compuserve.com
> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
> jnasr at ryerson.ca)
> _______________________________________________
> Foodplanning mailing list
> Foodplanning at u.washington.edu
> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 18:31:32 -0500
> From: Jesse Richardson <jessej at vt.edu>
> Subject: RE: [Foodplanning] JPER article
> To: Jill Rubin <jrubin at glynwood.org>
> Cc: foodplanning at u.washington.edu
> Message-ID: <1168039892.459edfd4e3607 at webmail.vt.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Jill:
>
> I agree with most of your comments. However, your statement "that
> you are buying
> tomatoes that are keeping a farm in production and preventing
> sprawl is not
> insignificant phenomenon of local food systems" struck me.
> "Keeping a farm in
> production" is just as likely to promote sprawl as to prevent
> sprawl. It
> depends on many factors, not the least of which is the location of
> the farm.
> "Keeping a farm in production does not change the rate or amount of
> development
> in a region, it merely helps determine the spatial arrangement.
> Some farms
> SHOULD be developed, in order to prevent development on more
> "worthy" farms.
> In some regions of Virginia, we are seeing so many country estates
> and hobby
> farms with conservation easements (for which the donors were
> handsomely
> compensated) that there is only one place for development to go:
> the real
> farms.
>
> Jesse
>
>
> Quoting Jill Rubin <jrubin at glynwood.org>:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I just read Avoiding the Local Trap. I think it makes some good
>> points
>> (relevant to almost anything) that local should not be embraced
>> without
>> examination. And yes, academics and advocates often interchange
>> local
>> with other goals probably more often then we should. But, I am not
>> convinced it is as big a problem or as neutral as the authors
>> suggest.
>>
>> The loftier goals of sustainability, democracy, and social justice
>> are
>> very difficult to define and manufacture (ie. one of the major
>> criticisms of both organic and fair trade labeling schemes is that
>> they
>> fail to capture the essence of social justice and sustainability by
>> their inherent reductive approaches). Local is a tangible
>> approach that
>> sometimes, but not always, compliments these broader goals. I
>> think the
>> reason local has gotten a lot traction in the food movement is
>> because
>> it is not an idealistic concept but a physical reality (even if it
>> is a
>> socially constructed, relative, relational, and fixed reality). What
>> makes local an effective organizing tool is that it is a hook. I
>> think
>> the challenge is that in defining a local food system, or
>> community food
>> system, as I prefer to call it, is in understanding the components
>> you
>> have, you don't like, and you want to change, and what side-
>> effects that
>> change will have...but this is not a critique of local, but a prudent
>> approach to any endeavor.
>>
>> Another important feature of local is that it is "human scale."
>> Local
>> is something people can relate to, grab onto, and get to know.
>> The one
>> clear advantage local always has over broader geographic scales is
>> proximity. When a New Yorker eats hamburger raised in California on
>> mid-west feed, it is hard to know (except by books like Omnivores
>> Dilemma) the environmental and social impacts. Local presents a much
>> more feasible scale to understand the good and bad of the food system
>> ie. my lake is nutrient loaded because of fertilizer run-off and I
>> cannot fish there or I appreciate the aesthetic of farms on the
>> landscape. I think the intimacy of a local food system is a very
>> important feature of local...that you are buying tomatoes that are
>> keeping a farm in production and preventing sprawl is not
>> insignificant
>> phenomenon of local food systems.
>>
>> My point is local is not a misguided approach, but it needs to be
>> tempered with understanding of the diverse consequences and ultimate
>> goals. And I would happily throw out the concept--"local food
>> system"
>> for a much more diverse and descriptive concept such as community
>> food
>> system...but there are plenty of problematics with "community" too...
>>
>> -Jill
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
>> [mailto:foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Joseph Nasr
>> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:03 AM
>> To: Janet Hammer
>> Cc: foodplanning
>> Subject: Re: [Foodplanning] JPER article
>>
>> Thanks Janet for getting this discussion started on a good
>> footing. I
>> look
>> forward to hearing the thoughts of others on this.
>> Joe
>>
>>
>> Joe Nasr
>> joenasr at compuserve.com
>> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
>> jnasr at ryerson.ca)
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foodplanning mailing list
>> Foodplanning at u.washington.edu
>> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foodplanning mailing list
>> Foodplanning at u.washington.edu
>> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
>>
>
>
> Jesse J. Richardson, Jr.
> Associate Professor
> Urban Affairs and Planning
> School of Public and International Affairs
> Virginia Tech
> Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0113
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foodplanning mailing list
> Foodplanning at mailman1.u.washington.edu
> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/foodplanning
>
>
> End of Foodplanning Digest, Vol 26, Issue 4
> *******************************************
Nevin Cohen
Visiting Assistant Professor
Eugene Lang College
The New School for Liberal Arts
64 West 11th Street Room 111
New York, NY 10011
917-721-8037
cohenn at newschool.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/private/foodplanning/attachments/20070109/ec20a96a/attachment-0001.htm
More information about the Foodplanning
mailing list