Does thinking globally mean eating locally?

For some, the environmentally conscious adage "think globally, act locally" includes eating locally. Purchasing and consuming "more locally grown produce and other foods from farmers and producers in your community," per Healthline, is a way of acting locally, citing the benefits of supporting your local community as well as reducing your carbon footprint. However, others say the benefit of local eating is overstated and there are other dietary decisions you can make to better support the environment. 

It's about what and how, not where

Research has found that the "transport emissions of food are trivial," explained Christine Ro at Forbes, adding that "how food is produced has a much bigger impact than how it's transported." Food miles are the "distance food travels from where it is grown to where it is ultimately purchased or consumed by the end user," according to the Global Development Research Center, and it only accounts for a small percentage of the carbon footprint of food production. 

Just because a product comes from a local product also doesn't mean that it's necessarily greener. "Growing seasonal produce under the sun and then exporting it generally results in much lower emissions than growing it domestically in energy-guzzling greenhouses," Ro added. "It's more important to focus on how your food is produced," Cecilia Nowell wrote in The Guardian. "Eating local can be a part of that, but it doesn't have to be."

"Although many local farms tout themselves as ethical alternatives to industrial agriculture, there's no rule saying they have to be organic or worker-friendly," Nowell continued. "In many crops, it's the fertilizer and pesticides required to grow large quantities of food on industrial farms." In addition, meat will always have a worse carbon footprint than produce. "It is not the location that makes the carbon footprint of your dinner large, but the fact that it is beef," remarked Hannah Ritchie in Our World in Data. It doesn't matter "whether you buy it from the farmer next door or from far away."

Stability and nutrition

Local products are also better for reducing waste, "particularly of plastic packaging and plastic bags," supporting local green spaces and reducing the carbon emissions associated with travel, Healthline added. But most significantly, "robust local food systems offer immunity from food shortages," Joanne Will wrote in CBC. "If we don't patronize our local producers now, they won't be here tomorrow, and we'll be left to the mercy of a faceless, nameless 'supply chain' for food," which may not hold up in a disaster like another global pandemic.

The globalization of food "creates an unstable and potentially unsustainable system for both the farmer and the consumer," because "farmers have to grow products to sell to consumers on the other side of the continent or halfway around the world," Richard Gast of the Cornell Ag Connection wrote in Press-Republican. "Local food systems alleviate and even eliminate that kind of instability, while allowing community members to get closer to the sources of the wholesome, nutritious food they're eating."

Local food, especially produce, may also give you the "biggest bang for your buck when it comes to nutrition," Healthline stated. "Local produce sold at farmers markets may be picked or harvested just a day or two before — or on the morning of the market," which is not only fresher but more nutritious because the products tend to "lose some of their nutrients during transportation and processing or while sitting on grocery store shelves."