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No I’m not talking money now even though it all comes down to it in the end. I’m talking about the environmental cost of shipping agriculture products across the world.
Carbon footprint could be significantly reduced if we all bought more local products and this goes especially to food. The trouble is that not enough food is created locally and it is hardly a surprise as it is much cheaper to use farmers in third world countries to grow our food.
After the recent rice crisis it seems that to depend entirely on the agriculture and stability of other countries is not a very good idea but I feel the question here is complex.
Are we to agree that it is best to treat the world as a global village meaning that we stop being attached to the future of “our” agriculture or “our” industry and just let the world balance itself. If it is much cheaper to grow food or manufacture all our products in one country and transport them to other countries for consumption then this is the right thing to do. We would have interest to keep the government and economy of these states stable which would help them in the long run to be a better place for their citizens and maybe result in less illegal immigration of people just wanting the chance to have a somehow decent future.
The other scenario is that we look at the situation with more commitment to the local perspective. This makes a lot of sense ecologically as long distance shipment of food and products costs us dearly in term of the carbon footprint..
I’ve read an article by Ernie Atencio that raised another ecological argument for the strengthening of local agriculture saying that one of the best ways to keep a land from being build on is using it for farming. This is actually an important point.
Local agriculture has two ecological advantages - being more environmentally friendly in both creating less carbon footprint and in making sure the land would stay free of construction are these reasons significant enough in todays global economy? I’m not sure
