Plate to Plate

Scallions I’d just cleaned during my shift last week at Caretaker Farm CSA in Williamstown, MA.

The title of this post is taken directly from Jennifer Maiser’s response to Stephen Budiansky’s New York Times op-ed of last Friday, titillatingly entitled “Do Locavores Need Math Lessons?” Ms. Maiser is the founder of the Eat Local Challenge, whose 2007 One Local Summer really spurred me into this locavore thing more determinedly. As she says so well, “Food miles are a very small part of the reasons to eat locally.” This is nearly exactly what I said myself upon reading the op-ed.

Her response, along with many others, is part of a virtual roundtable over at Grist. It’s worth reading all the responses to get a good view of the the varied perspectives coming out of this movement (if you can call it that), but here are some of my favorite bits.

Local food is a worthwhile endeavor without an environmental story, and doesn’t need one to thrive.

— Blake Hurst, Missouri farmer

What does the desire to be a locavore say about our disjointed food system, and is there room for improvement by developing regional food systems?

— Dave Love, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

The local foods movement is not so much about choosing between what’s grown here and what’s grown elsewhere. It’s about having any sort of choice at all.

— Elanor Starmer, Food & Water Watch