Localism vs Agribusiness

Desrochers derides locavorism as a philosophy that "simply amounts to saying backward is the new forward." Food economist Gary Blumenthal, who also spoke at Cato, goes even further: "I equate it to fundamental Islam – this rejection of modernity." But instead of asking, "why have locavore movements always disappeared?" it may also be worth pondering the inverse: Why do they keep cropping up?

In her introduction, Rich mentions one obvious market failure of the industrial food system, although she doesn't frame it in such terms. In "food deserts," she writes, it's often easier to plant vegetables than it is to get corner stores to start carrying them, or to convince full-service supermarkets to move in. If our industrial food system does such a good job of feeding ever more of the world’s population at ever-lower prices, with a growing mastery over seasonality, why is it so hard to find a tomato in July in Detroit? Why is it easier for a shopper on food stamps to purchase 1,000 calories in candy bars than 1,000 calories in canned soup? These are the unanticipated consequences of our food system that some locavores think they can address.

Desrochers only allows for the coexistence of locavores and agribusiness, of urban farmers and urbanization, in one place: the production of niche products for rich folks. He leaves no room for many of the benefits that Rich documents are already taking place, and he sidesteps some of the biggest problems these urban farmers think need addressing.

Flip to the back of Desrochers’ book, and the topic of obesity gets this meager entry: "145, 146, 166" (Michael Pollan, on the other hand, gets 16 pages). Surely locavores have their extremists, just as any other movement does. But if Michael Pollan himself has never advocated a full-scale return to pre-industrial agrarianism, is there really such a menace?

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/07/debating-local-food-movement/2435/

First of all, Desroschers suffers from the economist slavish devotion to "ceterus parebus" which amounts to a set of assumptions based on the idea that all things remain equal, and constant. Such a fallacy reduces economists to pixie like pollyanna's that assume everything positive will remain positive.

Secondly, localism does boost a local economy simply by increasing the amount of available funds in the local community, by growing ones own food, more cash is available to spend in that community as they are not tethered to a outside suppliers removing funds from the community.

Thirdly, simply because growing a garden is not economically quantifiable outside of a balance sheet does not mean it boils down to a "Build a Walmart vs Grow Potatoes" proposition, there are reduced environmental impacts that are quantifiable by looking at quality of life issues.

Fourthly:

Desrochers’ environmental arguments are the most interesting. But he has equal faith that these same economies of scale deliver us safer food, food that’s engineered to be more nutritious, and a more secure global supply of it – all benefits that locavores threaten. He sums all of this up with a dramatic slide warning that locavorism will lead inevitably to higher costs and greater poverty, no environmental and social benefits, less food security and nutrition, and significant penalties for developing economies

He disputes his own argument, "if" any given area produces food locally vs an area that does not, then the area that does not produce food and builds commercial property instead will naturally have an advantage, if he is so confident in his theory then sooner or later the locally grown food areas will inevitably switch to importing their food to keep up economically.

Fifthly, he misses out on a micro economic view that an individual may use their free time to increase their productive capacity via growing their own food, here once again ceterus parebus falls down as it assumes a 24 hr clock that every worker potentially can work all 24 hrs. That is not reality and yet another reason why economics, Hayek or Keynsian, is called "the Dismal Science".

My math major friend in college was actually laughing at the professor during our shared macroeconomics class because the mathmatical formulas were so ill conceived.