Shopping local

Buying only local produce means making a commitment to paying much more money for your weekly shop. 250 years ago, Adam Smith demonstrated that there is an economic law of comparative advantage. This states that each country or region should focus on producing those crops and manufactures to which it is best suited, exporting these and using the income to purchase things which other countries can produce more cheaply and efficiently. This way everyone prospers, gaining the most profit from their special areas of economic expertise, while spending less to buy those things in which others excel. Deciding to buy only local produce flies in the face of economic reality, because much of the food that can be produced nearby would be much cheaper if imported from another country with cheaper land and labour, a more suitable climate and greater economies of scale. The bottom line here is that shopping local can only ever be an indulgence of the rich – ordinary working families must follow the rules of comparative advantage and buy their food cheaply from supermarkets, which can seek out the cheapest and most efficient sources of each foodstuff.

Buying local is not actually environmentally friendly. The idea of food miles sounds wonderfully green, but the concept is deeply flawed. Often it takes much more energy (for heated glasshouses and fertilisers) to grow fruit and vegetables locally than it does to grow them in a country with a more suitable climate and then transport them by road, sea or air. Studies have found that it is better for the environment to produce butter, cheese, lamb and apples in New Zealand and then ship them to Britain, than it is to buy the same items from English producers. And most of the food miles travelled by products come from consumers driving to and from the shops. Indeed, the carefully packed lorries of the huge supermarkets are a more energy efficient way of distributing food than having lots of small producers driving pick-up trucks to farmers markets.

Buying local produce from farmers markets may be a wonderful social experience, but it also acts as a form of protectionism (which is why farm lobbies are keen on it). As well as artificially increasing family food bills in developed countries, the cult of localism also hits farmers in the developing world by denying them an export market. Over the past decade or so countries like Kenya and Peru have begun to develop their way out of poverty by exploiting their comparative advantages in agriculture. Their commercial farming operations provide fresh fruit and vegetables for rich consumers in developing countries. Farms growing crops like beans, broccoli, plums and cherries have provided good jobs for hundreds of thousands of poor people, and brought their countries valuable income and investment. We should not sacrifice this massive benefit to the pursuit of protectionist “localism”.

Buying local foods from farmers markets does not necessarily mean that the produce is fresher. Today supermarkets’ efficient supply chains mean that green beans are on the shelves in Britain or the USA within 24 hours of being picked in Kenya or Peru. As most farmers markets only operate once or twice a week, the chances are that their produce is no fresher than this. In addition, farmers markets are a great marketing brand, but there is no guarantee that all of the goods sold are really local at all. British farmers markets often feature such items as olives and coffee beans, which cannot accurately be described as local. And if there is no source for a particular product within 20 miles or so of the market, a producer from much further away will be allowed to come in and take a stall.

We should be grateful for the advances of transport and economic globalisation, which have brought such a wide range of foods to our shops. Our grandparents ate largely local produce, and this gave them a very dull diet with a very limited choice of fruit and vegetables. They understood the importance of seasonal variation all right, but that meant they had little access to vitamins in the cold winter and spring months. Our diet today is much healthier and more varied as a result of globalisation, and we should not try to turn the clock back to the bad old days when only local produce was available.

There are other, better ways to be environmentally friendly than insisting on shopping for local produce. Locally grown food may be very intensively reared, so if sustainability is important to you, buy organic food regardless of where it comes from. If you have a garden, grow your own vegetables and fruit. And if you truly care about the environment, eat less meat as raising livestock involves much more carbon emissions than arable farming.