The Compassionate Instinct

Or some people care about energy. The food system is a tremendous chunk of our energy use—20 percent. I think driving consumes around 18 percent of the energy we use. People don’t think of food that way, but the choices you make about food have a huge impact on global warming and our dependence on foreign oil.

But you can grow and consume food in a way that doesn’t consume as much energy. The interesting thing is that it’s not organic. Organic is a little bit better on energy consumption, in that you’re not spreading fossil fuel fertilizer, you’re using compost. But it’s still processed the same way now, and it’s still transported all over the country the same way. So if energy is what you’re really worried about, you should be buying locally grown food, even if it’s not organic. So you see how it gets a little bit more complicated.

G G: This movement to buy more locally grown food is something you discuss in your book. Other than reducing our energy usage, what other cases can be made for buying locally?

M P: Again, it’s a question of what you care about. But local underwrites the continuing existence of local farms. Now why is that a value? Well, because local farms give us a certain kind of local landscape. Where I come from, in New England, there is this undulating patchwork of fields and forests, outlined by stone walls. You look at that landscape, and it’s picturesque; it’s a really precious American landscape. Where did it come from? Well, it came from farmers and their animals and the people who ate those animals or drank their milk. And without that system, it’s a museum that has to be mowed to keep it like that. So keeping those farms alive is really the way to keep those landscapes alive. And that’s why I would argue that buying locally in a place like New England is a more valuable, ethical act than writing a check to a land trust or land conservation group. It is an environmental decision. It’s an aesthetic decision, too.

But there are also virtues in having farmers in your community. These people understand something about nature that a lot of the rest of us don’t—about water, about weather. If there were no farms in my town in New England, there would be no farmers. These are people who are artists or craftsmen of nature. The best ones have developed models to teach us how to get along better in nature than we do. And to lose that whole encyclopedia of knowledge would be a terrible loss.

And another thing about supporting local farms is that you can ask farmers what they’re doing. All these supermarket stories—labels—are really just substitutes for being able to ask the farmer yourself.

G G: But if we commit to supporting local farms, are we hurting farmers in other countries who might need our dollars more?

M P: Yeah, well, you could argue that. Although on the ground I think that argument looks a little different. I mean, now lots of our produce comes from Mexico. But that’s no small farmer growing those blackberries. Chances are that’s an American company who had bought land from a former subsistence farmer who’s going broke because our exports of corn have essentially put him out of business. He sold his good farmland to the consolidator, who’s growing for export, and he’s moved on to more marginal land, or he’s moved to the city, where he’s joining the impoverished.

So that idea that you’re supporting small farmers in the Third World when you buy that product—I don’t think so. There may be cases where that’s true, but by and large you’re supporting an export agriculture that’s highly mechanized, supports very few people, and, odds are, has displaced a lot of subsistence farmers.

G G: I think a lot of people get frustrated or confused when they realize that some of these ethical choices conflict. What can you tell them?

M P: Yeah, there are a certain number of people who, when you apprise them of the complexities of these choices, throw up their hands and just turn off. They’re like, “It’s so complicated, I’m going to McDonalds.” And it is and it isn’t complicated. If you put it in the starkest terms, there are good and bad choices. There are choices that are basically building a new food system, and there are many struts underneath that food system: humane, organic, pastured, etc. And you do have a lot of votes; you have three votes a day, at least. And even if you just cast one or two of them in an ethical way every day, you’ve made a contribution to building this alternative. And that’s not a small thing.