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1) I don't know anyone who has advocated that everyone in the world ONLY buy local foods and even if someone did there is exactly zero chance such a thing would ever be widely adopted so that's not even worth talking about.
2) I buy local food because it is fresher (compared to grapes which spent two weeks being shipped from Chile) so it not only tastes better but it also lasts longer so there is less spoilage and I'm more likely to have less wastage because I can actually eat it before it goes bad. Second of all the heirloom varieties on offer from local small time farmers are different from what is on sale at the supermarket; the big packing companies want to maximize other things besides just taste (hard skins for shipping without bruising, brightest color, disease resistance, etc) where as virtually all heirlooms are maximized first and for most for flavor or for one specific task (stewing or baking or juice apples or tomatoes just to give an example) so they almost always turn out better in my cooking.
3) I do try to buy American when ever possible and reasonable. If the price is fairly close and the quality seems similar then I will deliberately buy American over a foreign import because when people do that then Americans work. If the price difference is huge or if the American made item doesn't really compare well then sure I will buy foreign but tie goes to the home team in my book and, yes, if enough people did that then we'd have a lower unemployment rate in this country.
4) It is a false dichotomy to claim "the land could be better used as something else" because I see tons and tons of small time farmers, CSAs, and even nonprofits making use of wasted space to garden and thus produce something of value out of a space which was either not being utilized or being under utilized. Examples include the tops of buildings, old car parks, people's backyards (Is having it as a dead lawn really better economically?), unused margins on the sides of roads, corners of pubic parks, etc... The land is tended either by volunteers who enjoy doing it in their spare time, by employees paid for by the CSA, or nonprofit (again, if these people are willing to work for the wages offered then great but don't give me horse **** how everyone should be doing something better because not everyone is qualified to do something better) and finally they get sold at the farmers market either by the owner or an employee so once again we've improved the local economy.
Lastly, manly cities (such as my own) have special public markets where every business must be a locally owned small business and where everything sold in the market must be grown/built/processed/produced with in a certain distance from the market and this really does help increase the number of local small businesses and give consumers additional choices as to where and what to spend their money on. This is simply part of the free market and if you don't like it then you really aren't a capitalist.
2) I buy local food because it is fresher (compared to grapes which spent two weeks being shipped from Chile) so it not only tastes better but it also lasts longer so there is less spoilage and I'm more likely to have less wastage because I can actually eat it before it goes bad. Second of all the heirloom varieties on offer from local small time farmers are different from what is on sale at the supermarket; the big packing companies want to maximize other things besides just taste (hard skins for shipping without bruising, brightest color, disease resistance, etc) where as virtually all heirlooms are maximized first and for most for flavor or for one specific task (stewing or baking or juice apples or tomatoes just to give an example) so they almost always turn out better in my cooking.
3) I do try to buy American when ever possible and reasonable. If the price is fairly close and the quality seems similar then I will deliberately buy American over a foreign import because when people do that then Americans work. If the price difference is huge or if the American made item doesn't really compare well then sure I will buy foreign but tie goes to the home team in my book and, yes, if enough people did that then we'd have a lower unemployment rate in this country.
4) It is a false dichotomy to claim "the land could be better used as something else" because I see tons and tons of small time farmers, CSAs, and even nonprofits making use of wasted space to garden and thus produce something of value out of a space which was either not being utilized or being under utilized. Examples include the tops of buildings, old car parks, people's backyards (Is having it as a dead lawn really better economically?), unused margins on the sides of roads, corners of pubic parks, etc... The land is tended either by volunteers who enjoy doing it in their spare time, by employees paid for by the CSA, or nonprofit (again, if these people are willing to work for the wages offered then great but don't give me horse **** how everyone should be doing something better because not everyone is qualified to do something better) and finally they get sold at the farmers market either by the owner or an employee so once again we've improved the local economy.
Lastly, manly cities (such as my own) have special public markets where every business must be a locally owned small business and where everything sold in the market must be grown/built/processed/produced with in a certain distance from the market and this really does help increase the number of local small businesses and give consumers additional choices as to where and what to spend their money on. This is simply part of the free market and if you don't like it then you really aren't a capitalist.
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