Local food

Local food is a principle of sustainability relying on consumption of food products locally grown.

The concept is often related to the slogan Think globally, act locally. Those supporting development of local food economy consider that since food is needed by everyone, everywhere, everyday, a small change in the way it is produced and marketed will have great impact on health, environment and preservation of cultural diversity. They say shopping decisions focusing on local food consumption directly affect the well-being of people, improve local economies and may be ecologically more sustainable.

The local food movement in the European Union has been hindered by EU rules requiring things produced in the EU, including food, to be marked as products of the EU, rather than as products of any particular country. The instinct of customers to buy nationally produced food in the name of patriotism was deemed to be a barrier to free trade. Of course, for people living in, say, the South of England, food produced in Northern France is more "local" than food produced in Scotland.

In general, local food is in opposition to the ideas of global free trade. Critics argue that by convincing consumers in developed nations not to buy food produced in the third world, the local food movement damages the economy of third world nations, which often rely heavily on food exports and cash crops.

Meanings of the expression local food

The word "local food" has various interpretations.
Many local food proponents tend to assimilate local food to food produced by local farmers, while assimilating non-local food by food produced and transformed by large agribusiness.
Local food is also often interpreted as being organic food, or food produced by farmers who adopt sustainable and human practices, while non-local food are often seen as encouraging corporations, heavy subsidies, poor animal welfare, uncare of the environment and poor working conditions. Those using this interpretation will often insist on bying food directly from local family farms following sustainable agricultural practices, or in farmer's markets or food cooperatives. For many, local food is interpretated as 'unprocessed food' (to be transformed by the consumer or local shop rather than food industry). As such, local food (as opposed to global food) costs less for transport, packaging, advertising, processing, artificial flavors, chemical preservatives. They support resisting globalization of food (also called global food) by pressing for policy changes and choosing to buy local food.
For others, local food is limited to the notion of food locally grown.

The other disputable side of the definition of local food relies in the term local. Some see "local" as being a very small area (typically the size of a city and its surroundings) while others would rather suggest the ecoregion size (defined by its climate, soil, watershed, species and local agrisystems).

Arguments for and against local food

Critics say that local food tends to be more expensive to the consumer than regular food and could never provide the variety of foods currently available (such as having summer vegetables available in winter, or having kinds of food available which can not be locally produced due to soil/climate conditions).

However, proponents indicate that the lower price of regular food (which is sometimes called "cheap food") is often due to governmental subsidies (in the form of price supports or direct payments or tax breaks) and often does not take into account the true cost of the product. They further indicate that buying local food does not necessarily mean giving up all food coming from distant ecoregions, but rather favoring local foods when available.

Impacts of local food systems

The first impact of a local food system would be to minimize food transport distance, from the farm to the comsumer house, hence reducing the amount of fossil fuel used up and CO2 emissions released in the atmosphere.

Another impact could be increase in food quality and taste. Locally produced food may be consumed more quickly after production, hence is often fresher (reduction of transporting time) and usually at a more "mature" state (e.g. fruit picked up nearer to maturing state). Since food is consumed more quickly, there is less need of chemical or irradiation treatments to artificially extend shelf-life.

A major potential impact of local food systems is to encourage multiculture, i.e., growing multiple species and a wide variety of crops at the same time and same place (to compare with monoculture).
With a higher demand in various agricultural products, farmers are more likely to diversify their production, thereby making it easier to farm in a sustainable way. For example, winter intercroping (e.g. coverage of leguminous during winter) and crop rotation may reduce pest pressure, hence use of pesticides. Also, in an animal/crop multiculture system, the on-farm byproducts like manure and crop residues may be used to replace chemical fertilizers, while on-farm produced silage and leguminous may feed the cattle instead of imported soya. Manure and residues being considered as by-products rather than waste, will have a lesser impact on the environment, and reduction in soya import is likely to be economically interesting for the farmer, as well as more secure (decrease of market dependence) on outside inputs).
In a multicultural agrisystem, there is usually a more efficient use of human capital (labour) (as each crop has a different cycle of culture, hence different time of intensive care), minimization of risk (lesser impact of extrem weather as one crop can compensate another), reduction of insect and disease incidence (disease are usually crop specific), maximisation of results with low levels of technology (intensive monoculture croping often involve very high tech level material and sometimes the use of genetically modified seeds). Multiculture also preserve indigenous biodiversity.

Local food production strengthen local economies by protecting small farms, local jobs, and local shops, thus increasing food security.