Rhea Kartha Kartha 1

Mrs. Stephanie Tatum

AP Language, 4th Period

17 December 2019

The Fallacies of the Locavore Movement

Over the past decade, the locavore movement has increased rapidly among modern

society. The movement believes in preserving the environment as well as providing better

nutrition in food. However, a community that wants to become a part of the movement may have

implications as the movement makes it hard for urban areas to access locally-grown food, as

80% percent of the United States’s population live in urban areas, and it will cause another

community to diminish (Source F). As societies contain many advancements, the role of the

locavore movement decreases because modern societies need faster and manageable ways of

achieving food and food miles. It truly would not work in a modern urbanized community. Thus,

the locavore movement provides more disadvantages than advantages for a community.

Primarily, a modern urbanized community cannot function with the locavore movement

because it harms the food production and food consumption of a society. Many urban

communities are far “from the major centers of food production,” so it would not make sense to

organize a locavore movement (Source F). The locavore movement exists as a decentralized food

system which only works for decentralized society, specifically developing nations because these

nations consider their scarce resources for local areas. Urban societies utilize a centralized model

for food production because they do not exist near the major centers of food production, unlike

rural areas. For example, my community does not have centers of food production around it, as I

live in the suburbs surrounding a city, instead of a rural center of food production. My family

and I have no means of finding locally grown food unless we drive to a farm that is 30 minutes

away. So, where would the food come from? It would be “shipped halfway round the world”
 Kartha 2

(Source F). Although my family has a reliance on the shipment of food from other countries, we

have no other way of acquiring it as we live in an area that does not contain any local food

industries, so we do not have any access to locally-grown food. The locavore movement cannot

achieve its goal for urban communities because While the movement contains benefits for

decentralized communities, they suggest negative aspects for urbanized societies because urban

areas do not live near centers of food production which would cause them to not function.

Moreover, locavores do not understand that while strengthening one community will

cause another community to diminish. For example, “The U.K. buys most of its green beans

from Kenya” (Source C). If the U.K. started to focus on their community and buy local green

beans from their own farmers, it would threaten the livelihood of Kenya as developing countries

need investments from other countries in order to survive. Developing countries in other parts of

the world that have only one high quality resource will not thrive with the locavore movement as

they can only thrive with the food consumption of other developed countries. Individuals

describe the movement as “gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to

Americans” (Source E). It may appear as a magnificent idea for farmers in rural areas living in

developed countries, but individuals do not care to think about the lives of farmers in developing

societies. They truly need the investments of certain countries in order to keep a stable economy

and society for their nation; if that investment diminishes, then the community diminishes as

well. While the locavore movement provides importance for farmers in developed nations, it, in

turn, provides disadvantages toward individuals living in developing nations.

On the other hand, many supporters of the movement believe that the

transportation of industrialized food increases a community’s carbon footprint. They implement

this issue in their movement in order to convey how the industrialized food system contains
 Kartha 3

corruption toward the environment. However, Source D implies that instead of transportation,

production appears as the major source of an increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore,

the locavores contain a fallacy in their movement as the production of certain food items appear

as detrimental toward the environment, instead of transportation; although, the production of

foods is something that individuals cannot control because society focuses on the fast production

of food instead of the quality of food. In addition, the chart lists the production of fruits and

vegetables linked to greenhouse gas emissions which the locavores feel as though locally grown

food appears better than industrialized food, but it is on the same level as other food on the scale

of greenhouse gas emissions. In focusing on the misunderstanding of transportation, the locavore

movement weakens their argument on the problems of industrialized food.

While the locavore movement grows rapidly across the globe, it presents many problems

for a community such as the lack of food centers and the ignorance of other communities. It

chooses to focus on the issue of transportation of industrialized food, which does not appear as a

major issue. The movement needs to focus on the communities in centralized urban areas instead

of basing its argument on rural centers. In addition, it should propose solutions on the aspect of

supporting other communities along with supporting a local community. The locavore movement

considers general issues instead of specific issues such as the problems labelled, so a community

cannot live under the locavore movement.