Locavore's Dilemma

This is a feisty, scrupulously-researched deconstruction of the "eat local" ethos - and how it distracts us from solving serious global food issues. Today's food activists think that "sustainable farming" and "eating local" are the way to solve a host of perceived problems with our modern food supply system. But after a thorough review of the evidence, Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu have concluded that these claims are mistaken. In "The Locavore's Dilemma", they explain the history, science and economics of food supply to reveal what locavores miss or misunderstand: the real environmental impacts of agricultural production; the drudgery of subsistence farming; and the essential role large-scale, industrial producers play in making food more available, varied, affordable and nutritionally rich than ever before in history. They show how eliminating agriculture subsidies and opening up international trade, not reducing food miles, is the real route to sustainability; and why eating globally, not only locally, is the way to save the planet.

Author Biography

Pierre Desrochers is an associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto who writes frequently on economic development, globalization, energy and transportation issues. He was a senior research fellow at Duke University Center for the History of Political Economy. Hiroko Shimizu majored in Chinese history at Gakushin University and holds a master's of public policy from the University of Osaka. Desrochers and Shimizu have both been research fellows at the Property and Environmental Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, and te Institute for Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University.