Which is more important for environmental sustainability: buying locally-produced food or buying organic food?

Can somebody show me a scientific study which shows that organically grown food is somehow "better"? Not even a chemist with all his / her analytical apparatus can show any difference between organic and conventional. Sorry to say this, but organic farming is only for making the consumer feel more "responsible" for environment and, thus, making premium money for the farmer and the retailer. But even the feeling of environmental responsibility is only illusion, as the environmental impact of organically grown food is higher than that of conventional food (per ton of product). In addition, the lack of use of chemical pesticides (or at least some of them) results in a higher level of pests and even human pathogens in the food, not to mention lower quality (on average) as the organic plant must put all its effort in combating pests etc.

Did you know that (at least in Europe) chemical medicines to treat sick farm animals are forbidden in organic production? Instead the use of homeopathy, "the magically shaked water", is encouraged. Vetenarians call that abandonment of a sick animal, others call it "organic".

Any differences in quality and taste between organic and conventional result from different varieties used or shorter transport distances. And those can really make a difference! So the answer is: locally grown!

I prefer to buy locally grown organic food, if we are talking about fresh produce. When presented with organic from thousands of miles away versus local that is non-organic, I will choose the latter. Mostly because the organic food that has been transported for huge distances usually tastes "tired". Not to mention the fossil fuels spent transporting it.

But if have to choose between non-local organic and non-local non-organic, it would be the former.

Hi,

It was interesting....., but what about the recent controversies shaped by human ingenuity and unknown effects easily explored profitably by big corporations as in Monsanto..syngenta ...and lot of others.

Do you take it as a maturity, hey m not a greenpeace activist but how sustainable is it??.Coz, when we talk of agriculture we are talking of human life depended on various diverse natural sources of edible things.Overall it is also a questions of economic, social equity.

It's all about the quality of (our) life in the first place! Isn't it? So I should say choose 1. biodynamic 2. bio 3. other and if possible locally grown. But much more interesting is perhaps when we look at the developments in general! In a not so far future - I think - we can talk again about "agriculture" when the different working directions have integrated. Then we can call it efficient-organic-dynamic or 3D agriculture to indicate that earth, environment and cosmos are all three important. But why not call it again AGRICULTURE? Because we will see that the agriculture of the past based on old knowledge will be re-thought, re-discovered and/or really newly discovered into agriculture based on 21st century new knowledge! When ..... also knowledge itself isn't divided anymore in natural and spiritual sciences, but (for the scientists: via Goethe's fenomenology) integrated into KNOWledge! Because all modern consumers want to know exactly, repeat: exactly what they choose. Also everything about the "inner" quality of products!

Peter Daub
vrijeconsumenten.nl

I prefer local food as this will solve most of the existing problems all across , preferably my country India.
Local food cultivation and procurement will ease the strain over resource and bring independence and equity, especially the fossil fuels use as the cost in transportation will minimise.
Growing local food brings the local inputs especially the manures which can be raised locally as in bio- composting and other valuable alternatives.
This will bring local development into picture which can be repilcated elsewhere and is the seed of sustainable development.

The choice is local organic.

Local is good but suggests no restrictions whatsoever on production methods. Local organic would be my top choice followed by organic anywhere followed by local conventional. Fuel consumption does not correlate as much to distance as it does to the mode of transportation. A consumer in New York might require less fuel to bring foods from South America by water than from the Midwest by land transportation. And, as much as one would like to enjoy a varied and interesting diet fom local porduction, diets that are both satisfying and completely loca are extremely difficult to arrange in most places. Lynn

Living in Alaska, always eating locally can be a challenge. The Natives who lived here ate vast quantities of meat year round, and the only vegetables were greens and berries collected in the few milder months. Presently I am enjoying a subscription to a CSA, community supported agriculture, where I pay in advance for an entire season of once-weekly deliveries of fresh organic produce --locally grown, of course. It's heaven! But come October, I will be relying on imported produce again.

Be sure to read Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma. His writing style is absolutely captivating and it gives a clear look at the problems with factory farming. The disturbing thing he points out is that in some cases organic farming not only closely resembles factory farming, but it also gobbles resources the same way, including in transportation. I believe it's still better than factory farming with chemicals, and I'll continue to support the large organic companies. I agree that buying organic is a way of voting with our dollars. And organic is the right direction.

If you support your local agricultural base, you buy into the decision making process that occurs there. Small local farmers depend on you to make a living, and welcome your advice if it will help sustain their way of life. Small farmers are less likely to use high concentrations of pesticides and herbicides because they know that it does not encourage biodiversity in their gardens. The more you support your local economy, the more willing the local producers are to listen to what the consumer wants.
The localvore movement is gaining much attention here in Vermont. Localvores are people who consume only local foods...foods that are produced in their area even if that means only eating what is seasonally available. This benefits both society and environment and produces local food security.
It is much to our advantage and the earth's advantage that we support local! As local consumers and community members we share in the decision making process, build community and can plan on a community level.
Supporting long distance transport of organic items across the globe is not the solution to sustainability. Start by eating what is available in your own country, geographical region, state, or area. Reducing the transportation of goods from farm to palte is better for our environment, which will also benefit us. Be an active member of your community and the decision making that occurs on that level. Jump!

I always feel frustrated by polls like this because of the limited and rigid choices. I buy local AND organic when I can, I will still opt for local over an organic product that has been transported long distances. But my favorite method of food procurement is my back yard! I am lucky enough to live in a small town that doesn't have zoning restrictions on livestock. Several people have horses in town, lots of chicken owners, a few small pigs, and I have a garden and two Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goats (with plans for chickens and rabbits next year). I think we all must begin to suppliment commercially raised/grown food for home grown whereever possible.

I would prefer food that is both locally grown and organic, as well, but if given the choice, I'd have to choose locally grown.

Why? Because the area in which I live is "developing" more rapidly than almost any other in the country—if, by "developing," you mean "replacing its incredibly productive farmland with McMansions, strip malls, and warehouses." If we don't help the local farmers stay afloat, they will simply sell out to the next real-estate speculator who offers them a way to pay off their debts. And their land will simply be out of production, unavailable to feed the next generation.

In the USA alone, between 1992 and 1997, we lost more than 6 million acres of farmland to development; between 1997 and 2002, we lost another 16 million! The world's popluation is expected to double in my lifetime. A booming population and a shrinking supply of land on which to grow its food is a formula for global disaster.

Teh question is very ncie but the options in the poll are not much diverse. There could be an option saying Locally grown organic food. This would be my pick if it was there. Buying Organic food might not do justice for my local farmers and at the same time buying from local farmers encourages them to produce more and hence use more pesticides.

I prefer locally grown because transporting it from somewhere uses dwindling fuel supplies and adds to atmospheric and terrestrial pollution.

B.D.Marsden

Local organic is ideal, but when organic is not available from local farmers, I believe choosing the organic items from further abroad would verify the demand for organic and could eventually influence the local farmers to go organic too.

This question had me wound up for a while there. Especially with the transport clearly being a huge climate and pollution problem as I see things.

But I thought about why I buy organic in the first place. I want to send a signal to all growers in all countries that there's a market for organic produce, and to encourage them to make the shift back to real farming - the one that's environmentally sustainable :-)

The environment in Egypt and Vietnam is just as important to me - and the world - as the lakes and forests around home. And it may be a while before their local market wants to know about organic produce. But I won't be buying organic strawberries flown in from New Zealand though. Have to draw the line somewhere, eh?

And I guess I am hoping we can solve the transport problem by other means.

Peter, Denmark

We don't have local grown organic products in this county we have to go to other county to find organic products. I would like for us in this county to have locally grown here.

The question was which is more important for environmental sustainability, the obvious answer to which is 'produce that is grown without unnecessary pesticides, fertilizers or hormones.'

Local growers will not be pursuaded to go organic if their produce is purchased despite it's not being organic. However, because local growers are accessible, they can be and should be informed somehow that one would purchase their produce if it were organic.

It is an education and pursuasion issue. Unfortunately, persons who work in local produce markets often do not even know whether their products are organic.

Why isn't the choice of organically grown local food given. You can have both. Read my masters thesis posted on my website www.un-matchedsocks.com to find out how.
Bigdttme

The question is not that simple. It all depends on many things and it is different for different kinds of food and where you live. Consider also that we may have to produce large quantities of biomass for other purposes.

Regards

I usually buy locally grown, seasonal produce and try to frequent vegetable stands and farmers' markets during the growing season. If I'm buying from the store, I consider which types of produce are most notable for having been sprayed with pesticides. Apples, tomatoes, and strawberries are usually at the top of the lists I've seen concerning pesticide use, so I try to buy organic with those types. If it's a fruit with a skin/rind you don't eat like melons, then I buy those locally. As others have said here, the ideal is both local and organic. We are fortunate in central Virginia to have quite a few local organic farms and the numbers seem to be growing.

M. Davis

Organic vs Local isn't the real issue; we will really need both in the future. We don't usually think about energy use of food being important; but, it is the most important usage of energy for the US and Sweden, and probably most of the developed world. For a family, we spend more energy putting food on the table than on utilities and transportation combined. Very few people realize this because delivering the fertilizer to the farm, direct farm energy usage, secondary processing, manufacturing of processed foods, transportation, and retailing fall into different government categories of energy usage that hide that fact.

See http://holon.se/folke/worries/oildepl/energy.shtml for more information.

Consequently, most energy conservation programs concentrate on the efficiency of devices (air conditions, refrigerators, cars, etc); but not on the commercial food system. The most obvious ways to improve energy efficiency of the food system are to cut transportation distances, use organic agriculture, and recycle human "waste" products as composted fertilizer for the agriculture. see also: http://jenkinspublishing.com/bucket.html and http://www.andersonclan.us/andersonclan_top/toilets.html

Composting, especially with worms, makes recycling of humanure practical and virtually disease free. Human "wastes" are really nutrients we usually put in the wrong place, causing pollution and pollution abatement treatment. Eastern cultures, such as China, have traditionally recycled human wastes, often as complex compost recipes designed to improve the soil. This has enabled them to continuously support large populations by agriculture for, say, 4000 years. On the other hand, Western cultures, which invariably have not recycled humanure, have created collapsed civilizations, and even deserts, in far less time. At the rate we are going, Western developed countries will be the next collapsed civilizations. 'Support your local farmer' is a logical first step toward the inevitable energy reduction steps that we must take, and organic is another requirement for sustainable farming. We need both, and the sooner the better. Our commercial food system, as presently constituted, is highly vulnerable to energy supply limitations.

Both "local grown" and "organic" are important. If it's not organic, I know the local farmer and can judge the safety and ecological consequences of "not quite organic," which allows the farmer rare responses to unexpected problems of production (not needed in this example, however, but even some "nearly organic" is better than other "certified organic," since regulations may be suboptimal.) In practice, organic is not only better food, but less costly for the farmer because it reduces the farmer's and farm workers' health risks, and promotes a productive "healthy" soil. However, the tradeoff is eating more seasonally. A group in my class a few years back calculated the "food equivalent" environmental cost (ecological footprint contribution for the consummer's EF) for Boggy Creek Farm, and it was less than 10% that of "any season" conventionally grown food purchased from a supermarket. (I don't have an equivalent study for Whole Foods "generic" organic produce, but WF also sells extra production from this farm and thereby supports local organic production.) Of the whole spectrum of resources used to compare BCF organic and conventional production, the ONLY factor as a percentage of the BCF whole EF (which for BCF is less than 10% of the EF for conventional production) was labor, which was about 3 times proportional to conventional. (Note that 3-times more of a 10% "whole" still is less labor than conventional in actual labor used.) It took less energy, less water, less land than conventional. How could this be true? Several variables contribute. More multiple crops on same land, more efficient irrigation and water use, much less energy use (partly by on-farm market, but this is small part of total energy saving) were major factors. Food is fresh when purchased, which reduces cold storage and handling, reduces transportation investments of machinery and energy are factors of more efficient production and marketing. More hand labor was partly from multiple cropping and associated composting and application. A key missing factor unaccounted for in the EF is the social benefit. One sees this by watching the checkout line -- rarely are people in a hurry, and typically are visiting with others in the line, with the farmers and with others still gathering what they will buy. The kids play in the sand, watch the chickens, pick strawberries while eating some and pay for the rest. This farm is embedded in a neighborhood, raises chickens that eat the bugs and grass, and entertain the kids while parents "shop and visit". You can see the details at their web site:
http://www.boggycreekfarm.com/
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For carnivors, there are similar examples available for "grass fed" beef, mutton, pasture chickens, pigs, etc. Indeed, the ecological "cost" of meat in these cases is low (sometimes possibly even negative when used in prairie restoration), since the animals may contribute an essential ecologicl function as part of a complex ecosystem. But, this is another story.

Locally produced organic food is naturally the ideal. However, when a choice must be made I choose organic over local. I have not seen any research on this, but I firmly believe that if one factors in all aspects, the benefits of organic production far outweigh those of local production -- in terms of biodiversity, health (for both farmer and consumer), chemical pollution etc. Besides, if one believe in the basic principles of capitalistic markets, consistently choosing organic will force more local producers to go organic as well.

Another aspect one needs to factor in, of course, is that food is more than nutrition (at least to some cultures it is). For example, my local grocery store do carry locally produced organic pasta, but it really does not taste very good, so I end up buying organic pasta imported from Italy instead... Sure this add some GHG emissions, but I am just not willing to compromise on quality in this case.

Anders Liljekvist
Canada

This is a very important question! I usually prefer local for any food items I need to promte local, small farmers. This is critical to avoid the large factory and corporate farms, as well as the large family farms that exhibit all of the characteristics of a factory farm. By promoting smaller farms, and more of them, hopefully we can engender more of a connection, or sense of place to family farms and the larger urban community. Organic is also very important, but we should avoid the organic produce if it means our farmers in the USA are not being supported and if it is coming from another country, the transportation costs and pollution from petro sources will be too high.

Like Eleanor above, I am able to purchase several organic items at our local farmers' market----the ideal situation!

Kenneth Dagel

Good question! I just came back from the weekly market where you can buy organically grown food from a local farmer (vegetables, fruit, fresh herbs &c.) - that must be the ideal situation! Like having your cake and eat it, too! In this country it's possible to buy food that's right "both ways" all year round, and adapting your menu to the seasons isn't very difficult. And finally, it feels good to eat vegetables that were in danger of becoming extinct!

Eleanor Evertsen
The Netherlands

In a web chat regarding his recent World Watch magazine article, “Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?,” Senior Researcher Brian Halweil was asked, “Does it make sense for me to buy organic tomatoes from Chile when I could buy non-organic tomatoes from the farmer thirty minutes from my house?” Halweil responded that one of the advantages of buying from the local farmer is that you have an opportunity to know exactly how the food is raised and to influence how it is grown.