Becoming too single-minded about the idea of buying only locally produced items can result in the bigger picture being lost. Resulting in a situation whereby sometimes the social good of importing outweighs the benefits of buying locally.
So what does this mean? Well, take the example of rice production. When grown in Bangladesh, rice crops employ thousands of people, and naturally results in a dense, long-lasting product that is ideal for transportation by ship. But were a locavore looking for the same product grown in the desert state of California, rice production here relies heavily on diverted water, chemical and equipment intensive crop growing techniques. Furthermore, the tractor plow used to harvest the rice is less energy efficient when compared to the hand or ox-plow’s used in developing countries.
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