» Buying Local Sticks It to the Poor
The under-developed countries are currently in Copenhagen, begging the developed countries not to destroy the planet and retreat into domed cities. The under-developed countries are worried that their lot is going to get worse.
Not that long ago, the under-developed countries were most worried about agricultural subsidies. This was the chief topic of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round that started in 2001. The hope was that a fair market for food would drag the under-developed world out of poverty. The under-developed world has the land and manpower to compete on agriculture; they don’t have the skills or capital to compete on anything else.
The Buy Local movement is another form of market failure just like agricultural subsidies. Every time you buy from a local farmer, you’re not buying from a farmer in an under-developed country.
Local farmers don’t need the money. Canada offers plenty of other careers. Many of the farms within 100 miles of my location aren’t even profitable enough to be a sole source of income: the gentlemen farmers dabble in argiculture in order to get property tax breaks on their estates (an agricultural subsidy). Only small organic farms are economically sustainable, which is another market failure.
The just thing to do is to buy from the poorest farmer. You might buy local because it gives you pleasure (never mind making you cool), but don’t pretend it’s a righteous thing to do.
The local farmers might buy my photographs though. I doubt the Sudanese ever would.
Buying foreign also abdicates democratic control of food production. I don’t trust Kyrgyzstani farmers to use non-carcinogenic pesticides to the same extent that I do my neighbors (upon whom we can collectively foist regulation).
Also, restaurants should have a local menu — nothing is fresher.
Besides, it would be fun to be a gentleman farmer — the gov. wouldn’t give you tax breaks if they didn’t want you to do it.
Jack
15 Dec 09 at 12:23 pm
OK, I didn’t bother reading about Rawlsian justice, I’ll admit, but that is not my idea of justice. That’s why I’m not swayed by “Fair Trade” coffee. If the coffee with whatever combination of price, taste, convenience, and trendiness/coolness/marketing that I would normally buy costs $c, and the Fair Trade equivalent costs $(c+j), then if I wanted to give an extra $j, I’d rather do it by continuing to buy my normal coffee and then donating $j separately.
I have bought Fair Trade coffee – I’m not trying to take a stand or something – a nice robust, tasty “Fair Trade” coffee is served at the Italian sandwich shop across the street from where I work – that’s a combination of price, taste, and convenience that I like.
That’s a great idea. There’s too much self-righteous smug attitude nowadays about this kind of stuff. I regularly buy local food – fruit, vegetables, and especially meat – because of the freshness, superior quality, and/or (more rarely) better price. But the idea of feeling morally superior to someone buying the “factory” farmed, imported version of the same foodstuffs is alien to me – not so foreign as religious thought, but it’s still difficult for me to understand that mindset.
Don
15 Dec 09 at 8:14 pm
Token PC Defender of the Downtrodden signing in
From what I’ve heard, though, the influence of big multinational food companies in poor countries means that buying from those countries doesn’t help the poor farmers. Either they’re convinced to grow cash-crops like tobacco, which they can’t eat if things get tough, or they’re manipulated into practices that damage the land their children will have to farm while not receiving adequate compensation and falling more and more under the control of the corporations. In fisheries it’s especially bad. Ships in places like Argentina, Chile and parts of Africa are crewed by people hired outside the area, have few environmental controls because the government has a stake in it, and damage the local populations so that local subsistence fishermen can’t catch enough to feed their families.
Kyla
15 Dec 09 at 9:26 pm
hello again fellows — two comments in two days. must be almost completed exams or something.
why don’t you devote an article or so to debunk this absurd series that is ongoing in the vancouver sun:
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Rethinking+Green+Save+environment+take+transit/2314104/story.html
a whole series devoted to mis-information, the quoting of fossil-fuel industry consultants, it is really something to behold. right, recycling is BAD for the environment. com’on. have these people visited staten island? or mountain view landfill, or hartland dump? great for seagulls and mountain bikers…not much else.
all mass human activity has been cloaked by moral justifications, i’m not sure we should pretend the environmentalist one is any different. however, this one may let us continue to exist with something like the wealth and prosperity that we possess today.
and speaking of ‘market failure’ — is not our climatic disasters, deforestation, species loss and the destruction of crop-bearing land the ultimate in market failures? i’m ok with supporting this small one if it mitigates the big one.
stewartworks
15 Dec 09 at 9:30 pm
A quick note on gentleman farming, fair trade, and the landed plutocracy: If one of us were to buy a Colombian coffee farm (last I checked they costs just a bit more than a condo in Yaletown) we would profit from fair trade beans. We could sell to Starbucks at a higher price and wouldn’t necessarily have to pay our farmers more (just sayin’, not recommendin’).
Who “fair trade” actually helps is very, very far from clear.
Jack
16 Dec 09 at 4:30 pm