Morris cites the New Zealand vs. UK lamb study and James McWilliams’ The New York Times piece favoring fuel-efficient global transportation services as evidence that sometimes a global food system has less of a carbon footprint than a local system. For Morris, though, people are missing the point: beyond its environmental impact, food that comes from far away kills community, and community, while not necessarily married to geography, is most important of all. “Buying and producing locally enables accountability,” he writes. “Distance disables accountability.” 

Morris finds the equity argument (that buying fair-trade foods from poor developing-world farmers creates a greater good than buying from a middle-class American farmer) worth listening to, because many developing countries do rely on agricultural exports for economic growth. In fact, he finds it more compelling than the environmental argument against local foods, but notes that “the equity argument also ignores the dynamics of dependence. The globalization of food has rarely enriched small farmers in the south.” That said, strengthening rural communities anywhere does, as he points out, foster new educational and health networks, local innovation, and the preservation of traditions and families. 

An all-local food system is a pipe dream, Morris believes; too far in the past to remain a viable possibility for the future. But sustaining communities, whether close at hand or far away, should be the main criterion in making ethical food purchasing considerations. He concludes with the well-wrought thought that “public policies should be designed to maximize the use of local resources for local consumption here and abroad while trade rules should be designed to make trade less destructive to, and more supportive of, strong communities here and across the globe.” 

Yeah. If only it were that easy!