Every once in a while something happens to remind me that it really is a small web world. Today I got two unexpected emails. One from my Uncle Don letting me know my dad (hi dad!) directed him to my blog and saying hi. And the other from Leslie Dietz. Seems that I owe her an apology for my harsh words last night. And I think she’s probably right. She sent me today a long detailed response to my off the cuff remarks of last night. Reminding me that this local thing is hard, much harder than it seems when you live in Seattle with access to the Skagit Valley, Pacific Ocean, Methow Valley and Yakima area.

This was a very long, very complicated conversation, and I feel he skewed my words to fit his article. I was reluctant to be quoted in the first place and asked him to speak with the owner of Full Circle—which he chose not to do.

Well, working in marketing and communications, I can certainly see how that could, and does, happen. It wouldn’t be the first time that well meaning remarks were taken out of context to make a story and add fuel to a point that a reporter was trying to make.

Believe me, I love, love, love the idea of everyone eating locally. And I definitely think you’re right about “critical mass”. However, at this stage in the game, I’m being the pragmatist….Every single day I get emails from folks living in Alaska who want our food. We do not even have to advertise there… At Full Circle…in the winter we ARE their closest organic source.

Quite right. My remarks related to the impression from the context of the article that Leslie was asserting that there are no local food sources in Alaska, which obviously is untrue during the summer. Of course, during the winter, there’s probably a dearth of anything fresh to eat in Alaska except for seafood. So, as a household that last year got a bi-weekly delivery from Pioneer Organics that included produce from the southern US and South America (before we really understood the differences between local and organic) I can understand the siren call exuded by fresh produce during the dark days of winter. However, that said, expecting that we can and should have fresh produce year round, even terribly out of season, is a luxury that we cannot sustainably afford and unfortunately we’re all going to have to make tough choices eventually.

Here in Seattle, where we have a very progressive community, and the IDEA of farming has become very hip and cool, and people use buzzwords like “carbon footprint” and “food miles”, I find that people care about both farms and produce, but know little to nothing about farming practices. At the same time they want their boxes to be beautiful and full of variety year-round.

To me this is part of the issue with our current cultural values. We’ve become a society that expects to get whatever we want whenever we want it. And Leslie is right, there are a lot of people here in Seattle and across the US that pay lip service to the value of organic and local foods but have no concept of where their food is really coming from and the effort and work involved in getting it to their table. We are so used to seeing peaches from South America in January that many people have lost touch with the fact that peaches are a gift from the late summer, brought to us by the hot days of July and August, not the wintry nights of January and February.

We are more than lucky living here in the Pac NW with our incredible bounty. But what about… Colorado where all of the ranch/farming land was bought and developed into condos and ski resorts? What are the parameters of “local produce”? How far are we “allowed” to go for our food—and what if “local” means “agribusiness”? These questions are huge and complex—-not to be solved overnight—and not to be made into soundbites for a magazine.

Leslie is right, these are complex questions that we as a society, and we as the “early adopters”, will have to address and learn to respond to. Interestingly enough, I was having a conversation about this earlier today with someone else before I got Leslie’s email. We were talking about food as being regional rather than local. Because really, should I say that I’ll never eat green grapes again because they don’t grow in Seattle? Obviously not. In fact I bought some the other day, and enjoyed every single one. They were from California and organic and beautiful and a luxury. And we treated them as such, enjoying them as a special treat and not as a staple in our diet.

I guess what I’m saying is that we all need to work on how to define “local” for ourselves, for our community, for our region. We need to reconnect with the realities of food seasons and what they mean for eating during the dark days of winter and the drought of early spring. We need to learn to adapt our expectations and to make food choices that are sustainable for the future and that lighten our impact on this island we call earth.

And I expect that what we’ll decide is that the “100 mile diet” isn’t realistic for every community. That we’ll decide that foods should be sourced locally whenever possible in season and that locally might include the state of Washington plus parts of Oregon, British Columbia and California. That we’ll conclude that out-of-season produce that travels long distances and eats up valuable carbon resources is a luxury, not a right. And I think that these realizations and changes in behaviour would move us backwards to a more realistic time and forwards to a more sustainable future all at the same time.

It’s not as easy as a sound bite in a newspaper, a pretty spread of photos in a magazine, or a post on a blog. It’s going to require work and education and deep cultural honesty and change. And Leslie? I’m not disagreeing with you either, I’m just trying to figure out how to answer these questions for myself, my family and my community.

Peace, Laura.