Is it possible for an econ professor to commit malpractice?

[snoopy369]

Sigh, again this argument. Of course it's ridiculous to grow non-local food locally if the climate, soils and what not are unfit for that specific crop. Eating local food means adapting your diet to crops that can grow locally without the need of additional (chemical) fertilizer, a diet which follows the seasons. This is supplemented with ingredients that come from afar. A varied diet is a good thing after all, it's just that these exotic ingredients shouldn't be at the core of your meals. It's also about buying from producers directly, yet another benefit for local farmers.

Again with losing 4000 years of adaptations and learning? Why should the farmer be selling directly to you, when he could be spending the time and effort it takes selling, farming. This is economics 101 people (Reg, you listening? ) And, further, a very significant number of people live in areas where you cannot grow almost anything half of the year. What am I supposed to eat in Chicago in February?? You have a choice - either eat what's available locally and seasonally, or eat a balanced diet. You simply cannot eat a balanced diet in much of the US by only eating what's growable nearby. Most people in the US would be eating a grain-heavy diet with very few vegetables if we tried to eat only what was in season nearby, because, well, that's it... I have yet to see a valid economic argument for eating what's growable locally and seasonally.

And, 'exotic ingredients'? You mean tomatoes, lettuce, asparagus? Corn? Oranges, apples, pears? Sorry, I don't see why I should give up on eating these foods 10 months out of the year (or more, in some cases).

Finally... 'without the need of additional (chemical) fertilizer'. In part, I don't disagree with this - hence eating foods that are produced in areas that are good at producing them (chilean grapes, etc.). I just don't see how this is relevant to locavorism. Unless you are asking people, again, to eat an incredibly limited diet, and/or asking only a very small percentage of people to change to this diet (thus making this irrelevant), you couldn't feed most of our cities with only locally grown anything other than corn or wheat. The entire state of Illinois doesn't come close to providing enough food, outside of corn, to feed Chicago, and couldn't even if we tried, without chemical fertilizers etc. Hence we have the choice - use said fertilizers, or cheaply ship food in from CA/MX/etc.

[molly bloom]

I assume you're talking about some Norfolk in Britain and not the one here? Cause pretty much the only thing at the Norfolk here is a bigass navy base, not turkeys...

Amazingly, the Norfolk in Great Britain existed before that one in the United States. Similarly, English was spoken here first.


Strange but true!!!!!

[Bosh]

Well the advantages of buying something locally:
1. It's easier to cut out the middleman. I buy stuff off the back of farmers trucks and those are very pretty local and pretty damn cheap. In Korea at least the middlemen between you and the farmer really gouge you and it's a lot logically easier for me to buy stuff directly from Korean farmers than Chilean farmers.
2. You can get riper food since if the food is going to travel a long ways it can't be picked as ripe as if it's going to travel a short ways. The fresh pineapple I used to get in Bolivia is so much better than the pineapple I've gotten in New England or Korea.

Of course this doesn't apply all the time (no way in hell am I buying local beef) but it's not always stupid. Same with organic food, if I could afford it I'd buy organic fruit (especially berries) since they're smaller which gives them more flavor (just compare wild blueberries that you can find while hiking to the big fat cultivated ones for example).

[MikeH]

There must be hundreds if not thousands of variables in the relation of "distance between consumer and food" and "resources expended on food production/transportation," so any blanket statement of "preference for a consumption of local food is good/bad" is retarded.

And any statement along the lines of "if 100% of everybody did X then X would be infeasible, therefore X is infeasible" is so stupid that I wonder how the person making the statement is able to feed and clothe himself. This is Slowwhand levels of idiocy.

Why is this conversation going on after this post?

Is it too difficult to understand?

Simpler:

Sometimes buying local food is better (for a variety of definitions of better), sometimes it isn't.

[snoopy369]

Why is this conversation going on after this post?

Is it too difficult to understand?

Simpler:

Sometimes buying local food is better (for a variety of definitions of better), sometimes it isn't.

Because the discussion was about economics, not personal choice, and about locavorism as a philosophy, not on a case by case basis. Economically speaking, the philosophy of always choosing locally produced food that is in season and native to the area (or, allowing for a bit of reasonable wiggle here, grows well in the area, native or not) for the purpose of environmental gain, is nonsense, both because it does not provide almost any environmental gain, and because even if it did, it could not be practiced on a sufficiently large scale to make an actual difference.

It is very important that it be taken to the "extreme" of practicing it for everyone - or at least a significant fraction of everyone - precisely because if it is to have any true benefit to the world's environment, it would have to be. This is where many of the extreme environmental arguments break down - they are fine when practiced by a few people, but when you actually think about it, you couldn't actually do it on the large scale, and that matters.

[Jaguar]

In that example (buying local (I will use US since I'm more familiar with it than UK) vs imported as indicated by kentonio's use of "another continent") a very large portion of the cost difference, perhaps more than the price difference total, is simply how much the workers get paid.

This is 100% true of my Robert Downie example as well.

Why not just say that we could use the money to reanimate the corpse of Hitler and give him lasers if you're going to go for an absurdly inapplicable and hyperbolic interpretation of my position?

First, having Robert Downie Jr. as a cashier would be awesome. Who knows, for a big enough brand the publicity might even be worth the cost.

As for what my logic actually was ... it's that very close to all (it probably isn't ever exactly 100%, it can be more or less) of the "savings" between locally grown food and that which is shipped in from overseas is due to the wages paid to the workers.

You don't get it, do you? Not even when it's laid out directly for you. The Robert Downie Jr policy is destructive because there are much better uses of Robert Downie Jr's time than being a cashier. By insisting on employing him as a cashier, you destroy his movies, and we never get them back. This is exactly what you want to do with Americans. Americans are a much, much more productive people - an average of about $60 per hour worked - than most other people on earth. For the most part, it is a waste to have them picking produce.

So it can be viewed as transferring money (in the form of wages paid to fill demand for a product) from local workers to the consumer with no actual "savings" in agricultural inputs (because it is in fact using more inputs).

No. It's telling how frequently you think of things as just "transferring wealth" rather than making people more/less productive. Turning an American worker, who has all sorts of privileges that make him productive, into a fruit-picker, reduces his productivity. When you say that this does nothing to total wealth, you're begging the question.

[Lorizael]

The Robert Downie Jr policy is destructive because there are much better uses of Robert Downie Jr's time than being a cashier. By insisting on employing him as a cashier, you destroy his movies, and we never get them back.

I just watched Due Date. I would have much rather watched Robert Downey Jr. man a register for two hours.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Here you go!

http://www.city-data.com/states/New-Jersey-Agriculture.html

...not bad for an overpopulated itty bitty peanut of a state, eh? Eh?

You know how often I try to make this point? Freaking anti-Jersey bias

[Aeson]

That is entirely the opposite of what I'd argue. Local food, when it makes sense economically, is better, economically. Locavores aren't saying you should eat local food when it's cheaper to do so; they're saying you should do so always, because of some imaginary environmental benefit that doesn't exist for the most part - see the paper by the guys in the podcast I linked to.

Yes, local food advocates are often wrong in their claims. That doesn't make it ok for you to be wrong in your counter-claims.

The environmental benefits of growing food in the US vs outside the country do almost always exist. Your paper (I am going off what you've said of it) focused on one metric (CO2 emissions) which isn't where the majority of the divergence is likely to show.

I'm not arguing this just randomly based on my personal opinion and logical reasoning; it's actual science, folks. Environmentalists are irritating to me for doing this - claiming to be on the side of SCIENCE because of global warming studies, but then ignoring studies that say other things (other methods of solving global warming, studies showing certain things aren't bad, etc.) That's what is happening here - the only study to actually cover this showed it wasn't relevant.

You are talking about far more than just global warming here. Certainly the further we transport produce the higher emissions will be, all else equal. They are not equal, as usually we ship things from relatively inefficient production areas to areas which could be more efficient on a resource use basis. Almost entirely because labor cost are so hugely out of proportion due to government intervention into labor markets.

I won't speak towards greenhouse efficiency, as the only actual data I have on it is that it's not more efficient right now; but it is certainly likely that it, some day, will be (and perhaps some greenhouses are, now, particularly for certain crops - peppers are a great example of a crop that should be greenhouse grown due to their adaptations for climate/soil conditions).

A lot of vegetable crops are great in greenhouses. Even though greenhouses have high up-front capital investment, they pay it off very quickly in more sure harvests and requiring fewer agricultural inputs. Melons for instance will pay off a greenhouse in 3 years in a tropical climate. (I've researched this specifically ) Then in another couple years it will surpass melons grown out in the field (even assuming perfect weather, which is far more important for field crops than greenhouse ones) and you get around 15 years of increased production. It's just that no one here can afford them

But you do need to consider things other than solely the efficiency of growth; in particular, there is a trade-off in the land you would use to grow food versus the other possible uses.

You use price as a stand-in for "economically efficient" in every other case, why not here? If demand for local food brought farming into higher priced land it could only do so if the market was saying it's more important for that land to be used for agriculture than other uses.

Comparative advantage is still an important factor, both economically and environmentally - after all, if we are going to have an office building somewhere, and a greenhouse/farm somewhere, if we build the greenhouse/farm near the urban center (say, in a suburb) on land you otherwise would use for an office building, you now have to build the office building somewhat further away - which is bad for the environment, as well (takes more gas for people to get to work). More than likely this won't be a big issue - but it's not a non issue.

This is mainly a city planning issue, one which the US is already failing spectacularly at in most locations. Just some counter-points:

- Rooftop greenhouses could double the use of the land and better use of the sunlight in warmer areas. (There's an engineering/construction cost there above and beyond just the greenhouse, but it could pay off for at least some and probably most buildings.)

- The same mindset that pushes for local food would be likely to have a lot of overlap with a push for efficient mass transit systems.

- Decentralizing work areas could reduce traffic congestion and thus make commutes faster and more efficient in regards to fuel used per unit of distance.

- Farm gate operations (which often include small markets) could be more efficient when closer to population centers, reducing the need for dedicated market areas. (Though this is unlikely to every actually be a big deal, along the same lines as competing for office space.)

Quality wise, again, I have no problem with eating local due to higher quality food - I do that myself in some instances. The entire point of my argument (not speaking to anyone else) is that, strictly from an economist's standpoint, locavorism, as practiced now, is at best irrelevant and likely a distinct harm;

Then the economist's standpoint is wrong. And you definitely are painting the local food movements as something they are not to make them look more ridiculous. Local food movements have had little effect, but what little they have had would tend to be positive even when they're wrong about the 'why'. They have affected personal choices made by consumers (who agree with them ... no one is being forced), generally towards buying products which are more efficient in regards to resource usage rather than efficient in regards to labor costs (which are massively distorted due to immigration restrictions).

[Aeson]

That is entirely the opposite of what I'd argue. Local food, when it makes sense economically, is better, economically. Locavores aren't saying you should eat local food when it's cheaper to do so; they're saying you should do so always, because of some imaginary environmental benefit that doesn't exist for the most part - see the paper by the guys in the podcast I linked to.

Yes, local food advocates are often wrong in their claims. That doesn't make it ok for you to be wrong in your counter-claims.

The environmental benefits of growing food in the US vs outside the country do almost always exist. Your paper (I am going off what you've said of it) focused on one metric (CO2 emissions) which isn't where the majority of the divergence is likely to show.

I'm not arguing this just randomly based on my personal opinion and logical reasoning; it's actual science, folks. Environmentalists are irritating to me for doing this - claiming to be on the side of SCIENCE because of global warming studies, but then ignoring studies that say other things (other methods of solving global warming, studies showing certain things aren't bad, etc.) That's what is happening here - the only study to actually cover this showed it wasn't relevant.

You are talking about far more than just global warming here. Certainly the further we transport produce the higher emissions will be, all else equal. They are not equal, as usually we ship things from relatively inefficient production areas to areas which could be more efficient on a resource use basis. Almost entirely because labor cost are so hugely out of proportion due to government intervention into labor markets.

I won't speak towards greenhouse efficiency, as the only actual data I have on it is that it's not more efficient right now; but it is certainly likely that it, some day, will be (and perhaps some greenhouses are, now, particularly for certain crops - peppers are a great example of a crop that should be greenhouse grown due to their adaptations for climate/soil conditions).

A lot of vegetable crops are great in greenhouses. Even though greenhouses have high up-front capital investment, they pay it off very quickly in more sure harvests and requiring fewer agricultural inputs. Melons for instance will pay off a greenhouse in 3 years in a tropical climate. (I've researched this specifically ) Then in another couple years it will surpass melons grown out in the field (even assuming perfect weather, which is far more important for field crops than greenhouse ones) and you get around 15 years of increased production. It's just that no one here can afford them

But you do need to consider things other than solely the efficiency of growth; in particular, there is a trade-off in the land you would use to grow food versus the other possible uses.

You use price as a stand-in for "economically efficient" in every other case, why not here? If demand for local food brought farming into higher priced land it could only do so if the market was saying it's more important for that land to be used for agriculture than other uses.

Comparative advantage is still an important factor, both economically and environmentally - after all, if we are going to have an office building somewhere, and a greenhouse/farm somewhere, if we build the greenhouse/farm near the urban center (say, in a suburb) on land you otherwise would use for an office building, you now have to build the office building somewhat further away - which is bad for the environment, as well (takes more gas for people to get to work). More than likely this won't be a big issue - but it's not a non issue.

This is mainly a city planning issue, one which the US is already failing spectacularly at in most locations. Just some counter-points:

- Rooftop greenhouses could double the use of the land and better use of the sunlight in warmer areas. (There's an engineering/construction cost there above and beyond just the greenhouse, but it could pay off for at least some and probably most buildings.)

- The same mindset that pushes for local food would be likely to have a lot of overlap with a push for efficient mass transit systems.

- Decentralizing work areas could reduce traffic congestion and thus make commutes faster and more efficient in regards to fuel used per unit of distance.

- Farm gate operations (which often include small markets) could be more efficient when closer to population centers, reducing the need for dedicated market areas. (Though this is unlikely to every actually be a big deal, along the same lines as competing for office space.)

Quality wise, again, I have no problem with eating local due to higher quality food - I do that myself in some instances. The entire point of my argument (not speaking to anyone else) is that, strictly from an economist's standpoint, locavorism, as practiced now, is at best irrelevant and likely a distinct harm;

Then the economist's standpoint is wrong. And you definitely are painting the local food movements as something they are not to make them look more ridiculous. Local food movements have had little effect, but what little they have had would tend to be positive even when they're wrong about the 'why'. They have affected personal choices made by consumers (who agree with them ... no one is being forced), generally towards buying products which are more efficient in regards to resource usage rather than efficient in regards to labor costs (which are massively distorted due to immigration restrictions).

[snoopy369]

Yes, local food advocates are often wrong in their claims. That doesn't make it ok for you to be wrong in your counter-claims.

The environmental benefits of growing food in the US vs outside the country do almost always exist. Your paper (I am going off what you've said of it) focused on one metric (CO2 emissions) which isn't where the majority of the divergence is likely to show.

So... show.

You are talking about far more than just global warming here. Certainly the further we transport produce the higher emissions will be, all else equal. They are not equal, as usually we ship things from relatively inefficient production areas to areas which could be more efficient on a resource use basis. Almost entirely because labor cost are so hugely out of proportion due to government intervention into labor markets.

Eh? We move things from inefficient to efficient locations? Nope. We're not talking televisions or cars here, Aeson. Food is generally moved from a more efficient location to a less efficient (or less capable); that's why we eat grapes from Chile, or most of our produce from California and Mexico. It's less efficient to grow non-grain produce in the north and central portions of the US.

A lot of vegetable crops are great in greenhouses. Even though greenhouses have high up-front capital investment, they pay it off very quickly in more sure harvests and requiring fewer agricultural inputs. Melons for instance will pay off a greenhouse in 3 years in a tropical climate. (I've researched this specifically ) Then in another couple years it will surpass melons grown out in the field (even assuming perfect weather, which is far more important for field crops than greenhouse ones) and you get around 15 years of increased production. It's just that no one here can afford them

Again, I don't know anything about this, so I defer to you here. But what I have read is that what's currently grown, such as hothouse tomatoes, are less efficient than farm-grown tomatoes in areas that make sense (ie, Spain).

You use price as a stand-in for "economically efficient" in every other case, why not here? If demand for local food brought farming into higher priced land it could only do so if the market was saying it's more important for that land to be used for agriculture than other uses.

Erm, you really don't understand economics, do you? Sure, if demand for food (separating the word 'local' for the moment) caused it to be more efficient to produce food locally (wherever), then it would be economically efficient to produce food locally. But the argument is that it is always better to produce food locally (or, eat food produced locally), which is what is patently false. What I'm referring to here is that there are more valuable - ie, higher return on investment - uses for the land than farming.

This is mainly a city planning issue, one which the US is already failing spectacularly at in most locations. Just some counter-points:

- Rooftop greenhouses could double the use of the land and better use of the sunlight in warmer areas. (There's an engineering/construction cost there above and beyond just the greenhouse, but it could pay off for at least some and probably most buildings.)

- The same mindset that pushes for local food would be likely to have a lot of overlap with a push for efficient mass transit systems.

- Decentralizing work areas could reduce traffic congestion and thus make commutes faster and more efficient in regards to fuel used per unit of distance.

- Farm gate operations (which often include small markets) could be more efficient when closer to population centers, reducing the need for dedicated market areas. (Though this is unlikely to every actually be a big deal, along the same lines as competing for office space.)

Very little of this has to do with the tradeoff of building a local greenhouse versus a local (anything). Rooftop gardens aren't going to feed the city, and have other costs you're not including. Even just the labor to maintain them would be prohibitive given how many small gardens you'd have. And not having markets would be even dumber... not only is your insistence on farmers selling their own product mindbogglingly inefficient (hint: we don't have supermarkets because people like paying more for food, we have them because it's more efficient for them to sell food than the individual farmer), but you'd lose a ton of economic benefits, like a ton less/more difficult to obtain information about available food, competition, efficiency of shopping (going to one area to fill all of your needs).

Then the economist's standpoint is wrong. And you definitely are painting the local food movements as something they are not to make them look more ridiculous. Local food movements have had little effect, but what little they have had would tend to be positive even when they're wrong about the 'why'. They have affected personal choices made by consumers (who agree with them ... no one is being forced), generally towards buying products which are more efficient in regards to resource usage rather than efficient in regards to labor costs (which are massively distorted due to immigration restrictions).

But the point is they are not more efficient. People think they are more efficient, but the only ACTUAL evidence there is, points to them not being more efficient. Labor costs are relevant, but not nearly as much as you think - and even so, as Jaguar has pointed out, you can't just ignore the REASON for the lower labor costs. Most of that is not governmental intervention - it's market economics.

[Hauldren Collider]

Aeson is a US citizen who moved to the Phillipines to be a subsistance farmer. From that background, it's easy to see why he would be completely incapable of understanding that American laborers are more valuable.

Now, back to the OP: Your econ professor sucks and is an idiot.

[Aeson]

This is 100% true of my Robert Downie example as well.

In the Robert Downie Jr 'example' you are doing something that is verifiably more cost inefficient and doesn't save any resources. Of course it's money down the hole (outside promotional opportunities) because there is no actual benefit!

In the actual example, we are trading efficiency in basically every other area for wages. We use more fertilizers, more fuel, more labor (as much as you want to paint non-US citizens as useless, their time and welfare is still valuable to anyone with a soul), and more land for the same product we ship in. You want to continue to always do this so you can continue to jerk off about how efficient it is to have absurd immigration restrictions that cage people for you to extract value from at your leisure.

You don't get it, do you? Not even when it's laid out directly for you. The Robert Downie Jr policy is destructive because there are much better uses of Robert Downie Jr's time than being a cashier. By insisting on employing him as a cashier, you destroy his movies, and we never get them back. This is exactly what you want to do with Americans. Americans are a much, much more productive people - an average of about $60 per hour worked - than most other people on earth. For the most part, it is a waste to have them picking produce.

First of all, it wouldn't be a waste of Robert Downie Jr's time if it paid enough to convince him to work there. That would mean it's a higher value job he chose to take, and he would definitely be helping the economy out by taking the highest possible paying job he could get.[/priceisvaluecanard]

Not to mention we can always make more Americans. It's extremely easy. People are literally risking their lives trying to help us do so.

We also can't force an American to take a job picking fruit, any more than we can force Robert Downie Jr to be a cashier. Picking fruit is by American standards a rather low paying job. Even if we had a relatively large movement towards local food it would still be a low paying job. So it stands to reason that if we have Americans picking fruit, there isn't much else in the way of opportunity for them, because if they had a job they could do that pays more, they would choose to do so. (This is of course why most of the fruit picking in the US is done by migrant workers, who even though they aren't American can still be productive amazingly enough.)

Perhaps if all people were all insane and wouldn't eat anything but local food prices would rise enough that picking fruit would actually be a high value job. Maybe even Robert Downie Jr could pick some fruit then.

No. It's telling how frequently you think of things as just "transferring wealth" rather than making people more/less productive. Turning an American worker, who has all sorts of privileges that make him productive, into a fruit-picker, reduces his productivity. When you say that this does nothing to total wealth, you're begging the question.

They are paid more as fruit-pickers too. Since this is your only insight into how productive a worker is, it stands to reason we are better off employing American workers to do the farm work (even if we have to let them cross the border to fill the job) than to let people (sometimes the very same people) be less productive in Mexico.

As for making people more/less productive, you're the one who consistently can't see past wages to actual values. Thus you support completely ignorant policies and laud their effects just because it keeps the workforce poor so you can look down on them as unproductive.

[Aeson]

This is 100% true of my Robert Downie example as well.

In the Robert Downie Jr 'example' you are doing something that is verifiably more cost inefficient and doesn't save any resources. Of course it's money down the hole (outside promotional opportunities) because there is no actual benefit!

In the actual example, we are trading efficiency in basically every other area for wages. We use more fertilizers, more fuel, more labor (as much as you want to paint non-US citizens as useless, their time and welfare is still valuable to anyone with a soul), and more land for the same product we ship in. You want to continue to always do this so you can continue to jerk off about how efficient it is to have absurd immigration restrictions that cage people for you to extract value from at your leisure.

You don't get it, do you? Not even when it's laid out directly for you. The Robert Downie Jr policy is destructive because there are much better uses of Robert Downie Jr's time than being a cashier. By insisting on employing him as a cashier, you destroy his movies, and we never get them back. This is exactly what you want to do with Americans. Americans are a much, much more productive people - an average of about $60 per hour worked - than most other people on earth. For the most part, it is a waste to have them picking produce.

First of all, it wouldn't be a waste of Robert Downie Jr's time if it paid enough to convince him to work there. That would mean it's a higher value job he chose to take, and he would definitely be helping the economy out by taking the highest possible paying job he could get.[/priceisvaluecanard]

Not to mention we can always make more Americans. It's extremely easy. People are literally risking their lives trying to help us do so.

We also can't force an American to take a job picking fruit, any more than we can force Robert Downie Jr to be a cashier. Picking fruit is by American standards a rather low paying job. Even if we had a relatively large movement towards local food it would still be a low paying job. So it stands to reason that if we have Americans picking fruit, there isn't much else in the way of opportunity for them, because if they had a job they could do that pays more, they would choose to do so. (This is of course why most of the fruit picking in the US is done by migrant workers, who even though they aren't American can still be productive amazingly enough.)

Perhaps if all people were all insane and wouldn't eat anything but local food prices would rise enough that picking fruit would actually be a high value job. Maybe even Robert Downie Jr could pick some fruit then.

No. It's telling how frequently you think of things as just "transferring wealth" rather than making people more/less productive. Turning an American worker, who has all sorts of privileges that make him productive, into a fruit-picker, reduces his productivity. When you say that this does nothing to total wealth, you're begging the question.

They are paid more as fruit-pickers too. Since this is your only insight into how productive a worker is, it stands to reason we are better off employing American workers to do the farm work (even if we have to let them cross the border to fill the job) than to let people (sometimes the very same people) be less productive in Mexico.

As for making people more/less productive, you're the one who consistently can't see past wages to actual values. Thus you support completely ignorant policies and laud their effects just because it keeps the workforce poor so you can look down on them as unproductive.

[giblets]

Of course American workers are more productive, but if you're trying to eat foods that have a smaller impact on the environment maximizing productivity isn't exactly the goal.