Buy Local?
26 July 2006
Editor, The Christian Science Monitor
Dear Editor:
Snarling at those who challenge the notion that "buying local is always best," Robert Scott argues that "Local food producers are your neighbors, your taxpayers, and your local employers, and they are more accountable for their product than another producer half the world away" (Letters, July 26).
Well now. Folks who CONSUME food locally also are your neighbors and your taxpayers. Indeed, far more of our neighbors consume food than produce it. As for being employers, fewer than three percent of Americans work in agriculture, so local farmers and ranchers aren't hiring many workers. Finally, if someone dies from eating pathogen-laden spinach sold under, say, the Del Monte label, Del Monte Foods will be held accountable - and probably much more surely and aggressively than will farmer Brown with his ten acres outside of town whose tainted lettuce accidentally kills a diner.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Editor, The Christian Science Monitor
Dear Editor:
Snarling at those who challenge the notion that "buying local is always best," Robert Scott argues that "Local food producers are your neighbors, your taxpayers, and your local employers, and they are more accountable for their product than another producer half the world away" (Letters, July 26).
Well now. Folks who CONSUME food locally also are your neighbors and your taxpayers. Indeed, far more of our neighbors consume food than produce it. As for being employers, fewer than three percent of Americans work in agriculture, so local farmers and ranchers aren't hiring many workers. Finally, if someone dies from eating pathogen-laden spinach sold under, say, the Del Monte label, Del Monte Foods will be held accountable - and probably much more surely and aggressively than will farmer Brown with his ten acres outside of town whose tainted lettuce accidentally kills a diner.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Saturday April 21, 2007 at 1:27pm