Serious Eats New York - newyork.seriouseats.com

This has always been an insane position from where I am sitting--yes, one will pay an obscene price for locally-grown foodstuffs in the produce section of both local representatives of the chains, if one is so misguided as to do so--frankly, what stands for "local" and "heirloom" there is generally to be identified most easily by its bruised and faded appearance and the interest of the department's fruit-fly population. Blecch. Particularly when down the road in ANY direction for a very few minutes and will take you to a farm stand or market where the available produce is not only fresh and warm from the field, but also fully toothsome and cheaper by a local mile than that crap that attempts to "pass" at the grocery store. Me? I eat local and seasonal and well and affordably. And I think that is possible in much of this fine land.

I think it's for the well-off, at least. Not so much because of the actual cost -- you can find some decently priced local food at least part of the year -- but because of the time involved.

In most climates, the growing season lasts a few months, and the rest of the time, you have to go to specialty stores for local products. You have to spend more time reading labels. And you have to look for recipes that use stuff grown in your area. It takes effort (and, yes, more $, especially in the winter).

I tried eating primarily local foods early this spring. With unpredictable work hours and no car, I wasn't able to keep it up, despite the vast farmlands around Toronto.

To me the biggest impediment isn't cost but convenience, I can buy bags of birdseye veggies in a bag that I can toss into the microwave.

What is the opposite of a locavore? An omnivore?

I've NEVER spent more money eating locally than buying at a grocery store.

@BobbieAnne - Driving a few minutes isn't really a good substitute for truly destitute urban livers, many of whom use public transit and have children they need someone to watch. Once you solve that problem, there aren't many farms within a few minutes of the city. It's not much more expensive for me to walk down the block to my yuppy farmer's market, or spend a Sunday in the country at an orchard, but for the urban poor it's just not a luxury.

Ed, I agree with you. Most impoverished neighborhoods are fighting for a full service grocery store and paying through the nose at a local bodega for the reasons I just mentioned. I think Philadelphia is a good example of how to start tackling the problem using local food. The Farm to City program is doing an excellent job of spreading farmers markets around the city, and bringing in a multitude conventional and organic farmers to keep the prices competitive with inexpensive options. They also have a program with the farmers to accept food stamps which certainly is another barrier to local produce for the poor. And, Farm to City facilitates local produce for shelters, share food programs, and soup kitchens. Also, we have a few urban farms with farm stands in Philly, and all are in poorer areas where vacant lots were significantly cheaper, and all take food stamps as well.

I agree with the author's frustration. I've seen rich people sigh and roll their eyes when discussing populations that don't eat local food, mostly for lack of their own understanding. I'm pretty sick of Alice Waters selling zebra tomatoes for a song at Chez Panisse and telling people they need to buck up and find a farmer, without little consideration for how it's done, especially considering the number of school children whose parents can't afford to give them breakfast, let alone local breakfast. But at this point, we need to discuss solutions and not annoyances.

I think cost is a factor, but it's not prohibitive. I try to eat mostly locally - not exclusively, and I'm not doctrinaire about it. But I generally try to buy local when possible. I buy my food either from local sources, or from general sources at a local Mom & Pop non-chain store. My grocery bill is about $40/wk. To put that in perspective, I spend 2.5x as much on health insurance as I do on food. The strains on my budget are from many places - but food isn't really one of them.

I would suggest that, at the very least, local food is inaccessible to those that don't have the transportation or the knowledge of these places.

We used to split a CSA farm share with my in-laws. This stopped when we decided that we weren't getting all that we wanted from it for the cost that we were paying; there were also conflicting issues between pick-up times and my access to a car. The major point of contention was that a significant amount of fruit and vegetables were things that we really had no desire to eat; we could've become creative with those vegetables, but with our hectic schedule, neither of us really had the energy on the weekdays to whip up something new (yet possibly unappetising).

Now we visit a farmer's market on the weekends, where we can pick and choose from the local seasonal produce. Unfortunately, it's the only time that we can shop, because our local farmer's market is about ten minutes via driving in our suburb. If it weren't for my proximity to the Reading Terminal Market and the Tuesday local produce stall in my train station, I wouldn't be able to pick up local food via public transpo.

However, I really disagree with Mr. McWilliams' comment on "Localization, by contrast, specifies what is and is not acceptable within an arbitrary boundary. In this sense, it delimits diversity." One of the vendors at a nearby farmer's market is a Chinese couple who sells Chinese-specific vegetables, which began as a result of the lack of said vegetables in the area. I would argue that this is a direct contrast to McWilliams's comment, in that this example promotes diversity in a traditionally "white bread" area.

While I enjoy local food, especially when I can find sources that taste better than what's available from afar, there is a romantic quality to this whole "movement" that is a bit precious. I think it unlikely that we could feed 20 million people in the New York metropolitan area for 12 months of the year on locally grown food and, even within quantity limits, confining themselves to food seasonally available is unattractive to most people. Beyond that, it is not clear that fruits and vegetables carried in small quantities in trucks or cars (when picked up at a farmer's market or farm) have a smaller environmental "footprint" than large quantities of food packed in containers and distributed in full trucks to supermarkets.

The availability of decent and decently priced food in low-income neighborhoods is a completely different problem better attacked by finding ways to attract larger stores (even supermarkets!) selling mass-produced food at manageable prices.

Having said all that, those of us who can afford it should encourage artisanal food for the same reasons we prefer and should encourage artisanal production of wines, cheeses, jewelry and clothes. The individuality provides variety and makes an important statement about individuality in a mass-production world -- but only for those who can afford it and without the expectation that we are going to return to eighteenth century production methods and levels of consumption.

NYC Greenmarkets currently accepting EBT transactions.

Progress in use of Food Stamps at NYC Greenmarkets. (PDF)

This is a real issue and it is being addressed. The primary mission of the Greenmarket movement has always been a social one.

I'm rather tired of people whipping out the argument that we can't feed X amount of people if we all shopped locally and sustainably. That's as illogical as cramming food left on your plate down your throat so that children in Africa don't starve. No one's asking you to give up feedin' the world by supporting your local farmer. But all the costs of 'cheap' supermarket food are subsidized by the govt, i.e. our tax dollars anyhow, so pushing those costs out of the way and hiding them does not in fact make them go away. I've been one of the poor described in the article, for several years. I STILL went out of my way to purchase some of my food from local farmers, most of whom deliver if you order over 50 bux of meat. I still bought organic milk at the store, and when I couldn't afford something I went without. I totally understand that some people cannot. ever. afford to choose pricy local stores, but most farms DELIVER. Whether it's through a CSA, a bulk order split between several friends, or even a private arrangement, you can indeed get at least half of your food from local sources. It will indeed be cheaper, probably healthier, and you'll be supporting your local economy, your own neighbors. We have several community gardens that grow food for the food bank, just for those reasons and people love it. There is a large continuum of shopping locally, but snide comments calling it a fad or worse is just as annoying.

All I know is, here in Chicago, a pound of string beans at my local produce market (and by local I mean in my neighborhood, not a source of local produce), string beans are $1.49/pound. At the farmers market, where the produce IS local, string beans are $6/pound. That is a huge, huge difference.

It's definitely for people that are better off, financially. The price difference,availability and education of the consumer on the topic being the main reasons. I love a nice delicious locally grown tomato, etc but I cannot justify the price difference to a working single mother of 3 or 4 struggling with a shoestring budget. Can you? If you can, you are being sanctimonious and are just as oblivious as Alice Waters,et al. to any real struggle happening everyday. Also, the inner city population is not going to listen to some hippie locavore talking about 15 dollar grapes. Sorry not gonna happen.

One reason why locally farmed food is more expensive because it isn't subsidized by the government. Also, how much more expensive is it really?
http://www.oregonlive.com/foodday/index.ssf/2009/07/which_price_is_right.html

Another reason why, for example, out of season gassed to ripeness florida tomatoes are cheaper is because the tomato pickers are paid slave wages. In fact, some of them are actually slaves.
http://www.ciw-online.org/

People seem to also forget that local, smaller farmers are HUMAN BEINGS, that work INCREDIBLY hard. A lot of them are barely making minimum wage even charging what some people deem "ridiculously high prices". It's a lot easier to grow things with tons of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. Farming is not even a recognized profession by the U.S. census.

Seasonal food tastes better than out of season food being sold in conventional supermarkets in January(i.e. tomatoes, strawberries). I realize that this is an opinion, not fact, but I'm more than willing to run a blind taste test. Conventional food is also higher in nutritional value than industrialized ag. When people say that in season, local food is only for the rich, one thing I think is "so you're telling me lower income people only deserve flavorless, nutritionless, pesticide laden food? And that isn't elitist?"

I'd also like to point out that cheap food prices are based on fossil fuel. With peak oil, the U.S. is likely going to go through a major food crisis. We could do well to learn from Cuba and try to prevent that by recognizing these local farmers and attempting to give them the status and pay they deserve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period

Lastly, there is a lot of flawed reasoning in McWilliam's new book. The reviews on amazon are a good place to read them.

Indygal: My husband and I did do the Food Stamp Challenge trying to eat only organic and buying majority of our groceries at local Farmer's Markets just to see if we could. We found that while it was hard, it wasn't impossible. We managed (but did go a little hungry sometimes and ate less food than normal...and lost weight). I would drag around a notebook and try and compare prices and noticed that Farmer's Markets were higher but we just bought less food and wasted almost nothing unlike pre- and (sadly) post-challenge. Farmers were also very supportive and would throw in extra produce (something that NEVER happens at Vons).

I think the goal is, do what you can and what feels comfortable for you. We try but we're not militant. And yes, it would be harder if we had children or the luxury of a car, etc.