Even as the increasingly complex food system has become globalized, the public’s interest in where food comes from has increased.
Published: 10/08/18, Last updated: 2/28/24
Societies have always traded with one other, creating long-term partnerships with neighboring communities and even peoples on the other side of the world. But as trade routes have become dominated by a few giant corporations, the idea of establishing new routes closer to home has become more popular. Since the early 2000s, interest has been mounting in the economic, environmental and health benefits of local foods to the tune of $8.7 billion in farm revenue. And now the term “local” possesses huge cachet when it comes to marketing farm products.
While global trade routes have existed for millennia, until about a century ago most people relied on their local food systems. The invention of the refrigerated railway car in the late 1800s changed all that and allowed produce and other perishables to be shipped around the country, so that, for example, Bostonians could eat California lettuce in January. One hundred years ago, the top few companies in both the meat and railroad industries consolidated and controlled so much of the market (driving down prices for producers and driving up the costs for consumers) that the government had to step in with strong antitrust laws to break them up. Unfortunately, we have permitted these laws to lapse.
When the interstate highway system was completed in the 1960s, refrigerated trucks took over coast-to-coast shipping (which formerly had been the domain of the railways). 1 Food processing and truck shipping has been big business ever since. Today, food and agriculture companies are consolidated, and most of the world relies on a few global companies for the growing, processing, distributing and retailing of food. As of 2015, the largest companies in each sector controlled 85 percent of the beef packing industry, 66 percent of pork packing and 51 percent of broiler chicken processing. 4 On the farm side, the USDA estimates that more than 167,000 farms sold food to local markets in 2015, resulting in $8.7 billion in revenue. 7
In practice, the use of “local” varies by community; “regional” is sometimes more apt. (We use both, depending on the context.) In Des Moines, Iowa, farmers’ market vendors must come from within the state, while the food shed of New Orleans’ Crescent City markets offers products from across the whole Gulf Coast, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as from fishermen who ply the waters of the Gulf itself. Tiny, rural Calicoon, New York, has a 75-mile limit for its farmers’ market. San Antonio, Texas has twice that limit, or 150 miles. The Park Slope Food Coop, in the heart of Brooklyn, NY, defines local as coming from within 500 miles to supply the produce needs of its more than 16,000 members.
Farmers’ markets have enjoyed exponential growth in the last 24 years, increasing from 1,755 in 1994 to 8,268 in 2014, with total annual sales now estimated at $1 billion. 913 Research from 2011 found that about six percent of hospitals had started a local food program. 14
Some national organizations have been instrumental in this work. The National Farm to School Network has been a source of practical information to schools and advocacy groups wanting to develop local programs. At the college and university level, the goal of Real Food Challenge is 20 percent “real” food (local, organic, produced by independent farmers) by 2020. It trains students to advocate for real food on their own campuses, including working with dining services to make the change. Health Care without Harm includes healthy food as one of its key program areas and partners, with more than 1,000 hospitals in North America to address their food sourcing. 16 Some food hubs, like the Portland, Oregon-based Food Hub, which serves six western states, are primarily online platforms that facilitate connections between seller and buyer; others, like Virginia’s Local Food Hub, are a connector, distribution center, consumer educator, farmer trainer and more.
The global food system, like many other parts of the globalized economy, extracts wealth from communities and sends it to shareholders and CEOs many states or countries away. Local food systems, on the other hand, retain wealth and support the local economy. 17 Farmers’ markets have a positive effect on nearby businesses, and the money that small farm operators make selling locally gets spent locally as well, on everything from machinery and seeds to a cup of coffee and a new hat. 18 Food processed and distributed locally creates jobs in related sectors; every newly added full-time job at farmers’ markets newly adds a part-time job in other sectors. 19 All told, the impact can be major: a recent study found that if the State University of New York, a network of 64 schools across the state, spent 25 percent of its food dollars on fresh foods grown in state, it would create $54 million in economic output. 21
Many farmers who sell local food use environmentally sustainable methods to farm (such as manure rather than chemical fertilizer), organic pest control methods, cover crops and the like. Because there is no environmental certification for being a “local” farm, it is not guaranteed that methods used are sustainable. Less than five percent of farms selling locally are USDA Certified Organic, though nearly half of all organic farms sell locally. 22 Organic certification is an expensive, time-consuming process, and many farmers who sell locally do not think that their customers value the certification enough to make it worth the effort. Some use terms like “beyond organic,” and will gladly talk about their practices with inquiring customers. Preserving open space is another benefit of viable, small farms, as land is used for growing food rather than developed for a strip mall. Finally, food produced locally is fresher and can be traced back more easily to its source in case of foodborne illness.
Due to the popularity of buying “local” foods combined with the lack of a clear definition for what local means and a widespread lack of certification for companies purporting to sell so-called local products, the term has been misused to “local wash” a global company. For example, by 2009, Lay’s potato chips was using “local” to advertise in states where its potatoes are grown. The claim was technically true, but a global chip brand owned by PepsiCo is not how most people think of “local” potato chips. 23 Similar branding attempts have become commonplace in the years since.
When does marketing products as “local” (when they are not) constitute false advertising? A good question. More troubling is fraud, which can be harder to spot. A 2016 investigation revealed that many goods marketed as “local” in restaurants and at markets did not, in fact, come from local farms at all. The findings point to the disparity between farmer costs and what restaurants and consumers are willing to pay.
Hide References
Martinez, Steve et al. “Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues.” USDA Economic Research Service, 2010. Retrieved April 12, 2019, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/46393/7054_err97_1_.pdf?v=0