On locavorism

While I am interested in a fairly wide variety of public policy issues, my knowledge about many (perhaps most?) things tends to be somewhat superficial, and locavorism is no exception. What little I do know about locavorism comes primarily from a recent article written by a pair of agricultural economists entitled “The Locavore’s Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn’t Be Grown in North Dakota” (available from http://bit.ly/egKUki) and from the following 3 “EconTalk” (fairly recent) podcasts which address various aspects of locavorism:

1. “David Owen on the Environment, Unintended Consequences, and The Conundrum” (@ http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/02/david_owen_on_t.html),
2. “Cowen on Food” (@ http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/04/cowen_on_food.html), and
3. “Lisa Turner on Organic Farming” (@ http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/12/lisa_turner_on.html ).

These podcasts (and article) provide examples concerning how eating local food can at times be environmentally better (and tastier :-)) than non-local food. They also enumerate myriad examples in which this is clearly not the case – i.e., lots of times locavorism can be environmentally worse than eating non-local food. I guess it all “depends”…

P.S.: This posting came about as a result of a conversation that I had recently had about locavorism with a friend who reminded me of the famous 1st episode of Portlandia located at in which locavores Peter and Nance ask their waitress about the chicken (named “Colin”)…

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