Friday, May 11, 2012

Spring frosts undermine local food movement




The spring weather that has devastated orchards and perhaps vineyards and strawberry patches reveals a vulnerability in the “buy local” campaigns that have become popular.

Relying on locally-grown food is riskier than developing extensive global trade.

That is, unfortunately, the opposite of the public-relations message many farmers promote when they advocate local or national self-sufficiency of food production.

It is the message that Canada’s dairy and poultry farmers promote in defense of the high tariffs required to sustain the supply-management system.

 But, as this year’s spring weather shows, it is a misleading message.
The truth is that lowering trade barriers reduces the risk of going short of any type of food people would like to buy.

And the truth is that keeping consumers supplied with the foods they prefer retains their loyalty to that type of food because they have less incentive to switch to something different.

By all means, buy local and buy fresh.

But it’s not going to do much, if anything, to improve food security.