It’s yet another example of “buy local, eat local food” bashing based on quick, easy oversimplification.
In today’s Vancouver Sun, Harvey Enchin uses an Economics 101 concept called comparative advantage — complete with an example of the inputs and outputs of cars and computers — in an attempt to knock down the efficiency of local food.
But I’m afraid Harvey is confused. He seems to think eating local is the same thing as vegetable gardening, which, of course, it isn’t.
He throws in a few references to farming and international trade, capriciously comparing — it seems to me — apples to oranges and oranges to apples with a quick quite literal stop on bananas for good measure.
No one said we needed to cut off all international trade. No one said pea patches and home veggie plots were going to save the world. But if they were, it would take more than a glib comparison to modern corporate computer manfucaturing to stop them.
Am I right?
Come on, Harvey.
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