The Trap Within The Local Trap

This week’s readings dealt with strategies for planners in food systems, but also the vernacular of locavores and the local trap. I found these articles to be the most interesting because I heavily disagree with much of what they are say, and sort of felt that it was an argument for the sake of an argument—although I must admit Born and Purcell made a few good points.

They describe what the local trap is and investigate the claims about eating locally. However, I realized that they meant completely locally. This article was arguing that the local trap mean everything must be made locally—which I do agree may be a negative thing (it could lack diversity and be unfeasible/ not realistic for most people). Born and Purcell assert that the flaws in the food system have nothing to do with the scale of the system but rather capitalism.

Although I agree with the points made, I felt they didn’t take into consideration a few things: the local food system is where the consumer has the most potential to intervene, participate, and change patterns of production by demanding certain foods from the farmer. We learn from the things we see, the things we do and where else does that occur but in our own neighborhoods and cities. So let me reinforce that idea with a question: where did your first interactions with food occur: with family, neighbors, school, friends?

Most everyone can agree that there is a flaw in the food practices of our systems, and that these practices need to change. As an individual I can’t imagine changing it by myself, but I can imagine supporting what I believe by changing my own consumption patterns. Not inherently, but the local food system has much more potential to hold both the consumer and producer accountable to produce nutritious food and take care of the community at a more doable scale than the global.