Sonoma County Eat Local Campaign

The Eyes Have It

By Jay Beckwith

The idea of buying “local” is catching on. As with any movement that becomes popular folks will try to join in who aren’t really a part … what the kids call “posers.”

In a current article “The Corporate Co-Opt of Local” Stacy Mitchell at the New Rules Project has detailed how mega-corporations and their focus groups have identified the local trend and are moving in with their typical cynicism and speed. Industrial food producers call their products “local” because they are grown somewhere near their factories.

Conglomerated financial intuitions claim to be local because they have a branch in town. Starbucks is taking its name off some of its newest stores and re-branding them to look like the local ones they’ve run out of business.

Not content with trying to co-opt the term local, the “spin” merchants are ramping up their flimflam. Telling us “facts” like a tomato from Argentina has a smaller carbon foot print than one from Gilroy because it was shipped by much more efficient boats rather than trucks. Or that buying local doesn’t actually create jobs it just moves them away from countries that really need trade dollars to survive.

Inevitably a new word has been invented for this trend: “local-washing.” We can even see this happening here. A large national grocery chain with several stores in the county is labeling its produce as local even though some of the products have tags that say “Hecho en México” or come from even further away. Santa Rosa is pushing a Buy Local campaign that includes every business in the city including the mall.

Well folks, we’ve dealt with fakers before. What do they take us for, a bunch of county bumpkins? OK, so maybe we are, but we can still recognize the real deal when we see it. When it comes to making a food choice I like the guideline that a group called Locavores has created:

• If is not locally produced, then buy organic

• If you can’t get organic, then buy family farmed

• If not family farmed, then buy from a local business

• If not from a local business, then select products with terroir, i.e. from a specific region

We’re so lucky here in Sonoma County that we can easily meet all five criteria in most of what we put on our table.

My personal decision tree is similar but a bit more fun: I count eyes.

The food I’m most comfortable with comes from people that I can look in the eye. That’s why I love the Farmer’s Market, I get to know, and hear the stories from, the folks who grew what I’m about to put in my mouth.

When I can’t get to, or what I need from, the Farmer’s Market I want to look in the eyes of the owner or manager of the market. We are surely blessed with some of the finest locally owned markets in the world. These are places where the clerks have been there for years and you can actually talk with the owner.

When I buy coffee or other imported product I want to know who has done the importing and be guaranteed that she has looked the local farmer in the eyes and knows that she is getting and giving a fair trade.

And living here on the farm I’ve had to come to terms with looking in the eyes of somebody I am going to eat. That’s why most of my protein these days comes from eggs.

Sources: www.newrules.org/retail/article/corporate-coopt and local www.locavores.com/,
Go to www.GoLocal.coop and take the Eat Local Pledge.