The Locavore’s Dilemma – In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet
A short review can’t do justice to the amount of research that has gone into this book. Desrochers and his wife Shimizu have gone all out to make their case for the ‘globavore’ diet; to ground it in their interpretation of the science (there are 46 pages of references) and to make it look unbiased. Science after all is not supposed to take sides.
Yet Desrochers is a fellow of the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) a free market environmental think tank funded by industry. PERC was amongst those giving George Dubbya his environmental advice – all based on the ‘science’.
The authors acknowledge their links with industry but dismiss its relevance (a relevance proven time and again by scientific research) and their critics. As a result the tone of the book throughout can only be described as arrogant, snotty even, and defensive.
Desrochers and Shimizu use some depressingly well-worm linguistic tricks to make their case. Local food advocates are ‘romantics’, ‘protectionists’ or worse ‘cultists’ while those who advocate a global diet are ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’.
There is certainly a lot to chew on here and some starting points that many could agree on.
Farm subsidies have skewed the food system and left many farmers in poverty. At the moment, it can be more economical and environmentally friendly to, for example, ship lamb to the UK from New Zealand and tomatoes from sunny Spain.
But on this last point in particular, what happens as our energy and economic infrastructures collapse? The authors’ libertarian argument is that a freer market will sort it all out and that peak oil is a myth – and even if it isn’t, there is plenty of liquefied coal, shale oil and tar sands to fuel the global diet.
Where this book becomes very dark indeed and the Manifest Destiny belief of the authors is laid bare is when they suggest – more than once – that we need to feed the poor because we need them as labour.
The food system (and the economic system on which it depends) is broken and wasteful. This is a reality most of us are living every day. No amount of ‘eat global’ cheerleading can change that.
The world is finite, the climate is changing, the oil and water are running out and what Desrochers and Shimizu have to offer is, in the end, mostly sarcasm.
Local food advocates don’t wish to return to the past, they wish to move forward in a way that is resource appropriate and in line with human individual and cultural needs. Many would be tempted to ignore this book. I would argue read it and know your enemy.
The Locavore’s Dilemma – In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet
Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizo
Perseus
Paperback
£18.99
- This review appeared in Geographical magazine circa August 2012
