The local food movement is an outgrowth of environmentalism, which is itself a sect of secular humanism--an allegedly rational philosophy. Yet the dynamics of this movement are indistinguishable from those of a religion. Every faith at some point wants to dictate sexual and culinary mores, and so now we have secular kosherism--food must be locally grown to save the planet.

Make no mistake--I'm a frustrated farmer from way back, but I don't grow tomatoes because Gaia told me to. I do it because they're delicious. I am also, as we speak, growing herbs in the dead of winter with the benefit of a glow panel, a panel of LED's emitting light in a beneficial range for agricultural applications, and a low-energy device at that. That means that my basil is technically "locally-grown", but I am paying energy costs for the privilege. That leads me to a "rational" observation.

There is no substitute for fresh basil, which means that during the winter months when the garden is fallow, it will cost you 3-5 bucks for a few leaves of the stuff here in Utah. The use of the glow panel was essentially an economic choice. If I could buy all the fresh basil I wanted for say, fifty cents a bunch (which is what cilantro cost around here), then I wouldn't bother. There are implications about energy usage in this decision. I pay about 9 cents a kilowatt hour, which means that I am paying 11 cents a month in energy cost to grow basil (.00015 kW x 720 hours/mth x .09 = .108)

That's quite a savings, in fact If I save the cost of buying 12 packages of fresh basil a year, I pay for the lamp.

Yet the same justification for growing something locally can also be used to justify something grown in Mexico or Australia. Prices aren't arbitrary--they are a reflection of all the costs of production, including transport, distribution etc...

I have no problem eating Australian hamburger, because its cost competitive with beef raised right here in the U.S. Does it require less energy to raise a cow-calf in Australia? Probably not, but other factors are just as important and to dismiss them is foolishness. Japan imports much of its beef, and the reason is simple--land cost in Japan make its use for raising cattle a prohibitive investment. The same would be true in Manhattan. Are we really suggesting that New Yorkers only eat food that they can grow on their roofs and balconies?

In effect, modern transportation and distribution is an asset to the overall quality of the environment. It might come as a surprise to people annoyed by the plague of deer eating their ornamental bushes, that these critters were nearly extinct a hundred years ago. It was not, as some might suppose, a problem of over-hunting, but rather habitat destruction--namely by agricultural interests. So much land needed to be devoted to raising crops in the locality, that there was simply no place for the wild-life to live. Because we grow lettuce in California, we now have deer, black-bear, turkey and even elk in states that haven't seen one since the 17th century.

Socialism and the command economy also appear to be religious tenets of secular humanism, but rationally, a free market drives people to the most efficient uses of our resources.

That of course contradicts "doctrine".