RESISTING GLOBALIZATION CASE STUDY
Alice Curchin, Joel Boone, Kiana Barry
Around the world, people commit to buying local food. Local food improves the local economy and benefits the health of consumers. In a global food system, large corporations control production and consumption of food. People committed to eating local goods call themselves “locavores.”
There is a debate about whether local or organic foods are more beneficial. According to “Eating Better Than Organic,” about a quarter of the American population purchases organic food each week. The argument is that although the organic food growth process improves quality, the way it is handled and distributed makes local food fresher. Studies show that organically grown foods have no greater nutritional value than locally, conventionally grown foods.
Eating locally has become a sign of being a conscious consumer while simultaneously rejecting the globalized world. Why eat food from thousands of miles away when you can support local businesses and farms? To back track, why is there a need to get our foods from other countries in the first place? The ‘locavore’ movement has received some backlash since gaining momentum over the past few years for multiple reasons. First, while eating local-grown foods means supporting local farmers it completely ignores the need for exports in some areas globally. There are places in the world that specialize in exporting certain crops and their economic livelihood depends on that as well, but the locavore movement ignores this reality. Also, not everyone has the time, money or resources to eat local making the movement somewhat elitist. While the eat/buy local movement can be viewed as pure and beneficial in its motives, there are still down sides to it which I highlight in “Rejecting the Locavore”.
Davidson College Community Goes Local
Davidson College has made a number of changes in the source of the food the dining services feed to the students. The Davidson farm began this year, the food club brings local food from the farmers market right outside our classroom doors, and students are pushing for more and more local options. Globalization of the food market has decreased the quality of the food we eat, as well as stripped it of almost all of its nutrition. Americans are incredibly dependent on companies that produce food thousands of miles away, but many are now throwing up their arms and saying they’ve had enough. The Buy Local Food movement is set on the backbone of seeking nutritious food, at an affordable price, while also supporting our local farmers and their land.
Required Readings
Peter Evans, Chapter 65 Counterhegemonic Globalization –> Lechner and Boli
http://nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/articles/coit_bandwagon.pdf
http://geography.uwo.ca/research/great_lakes_geographer/GLG_Volume12/Belliveau.pdf
Suggested Readings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWhec0diebQ
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-12-russias-local-food-evangelist
