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JUST FOOD: HOW LOCAVORES ARE ENDANGERING THE FUTURE OF FOOD AND HOW WE CAN TRULY EAT RESPONSIBLY

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What does a contrarian historian who has argued against if their reasons di!er (at least in degree of emphasis). On the form of animal agriculture supported by Michael Pol- this main point, McWilliams agrees, although he does an lan and Joel Salatin, against organic fertilizers, and for admirable job of spelling out exactly why most food ani- cloned pork and GMOs have to o!er those interested mals have a disproportionate impact on the environment. in the environmental dimensions of food? Much more In short, a large percentage of arable land in the world is than at "rst glance. James McWilliams’s Just Food pro- used for agriculture. Much of this land (and pesticides vocatively challenges many environmental orthodoxies and fertilizers) is used for commodity crops such as corn, surrounding food. McWilliams, author of American Pests soy and wheat. And much (in many countries, most) of and Atlantic columnist on food issues, is this land is used for animal feed. Even generally skeptical of traditional environ- many of the ocean animals harvested mentalist defenses of alternative agricul- end up as animal feed. If you add in ture. If we forgive some of the contrarian grazing land, the percentage of land and tone, his book is a rich addition to the in- resources used directly or indirectly for creasingly popular literature on food and animal agriculture is enormous. If we the environment. accept this line of reasoning, we should also recognize that an accurate short- Just Food is split into content areas—local hand for the environmental impact of food, organics, biotechnology, meat, aqua- food boils down to animals, rather than culture, and economics—each confronting to localist, anti-modern or anti-technol- BQFSDFJWFEFOWJSPONFOUBMJEFPMPHZGPSFY- ogy views of agriculture. ample, that local food is environmentally preferable to imported food, and propos- While many in the literature note the ing (often technical) solutions to the prob- important role of animals, McWilliams lem. While there is a consistent tone and methodology seems to treat it more proportionally. Instead of arguing in the work, there is also a refreshing lack of ideological for absolute abstention from meat, he o!ers the short- commitment to the bucolic, small-scale, pre-industrial hand of thinking of (grass-fed, humanely raised) beef as models of agriculture that is so common today. #is ap- we would a rare delicacy like caviar. Such an approach proach allows McWilliams to take a new look at topics has a relatively speci"c behavioral outcome, and accu- such as genetically engineered plants and the role of ani- rately targets environmentally impactful foods. #is is mals in agriculture. I discuss two content areas (animals in contrast to Pollan’s shorthand to not eat anything your and local foods) as well as some conceptual questions that grandmother wouldn’t recognize, which evokes tradition- the book engages. al, labor intensive, and often non-industrial consumption patterns, and arguably has little connection to environ- While there are di!erences in the community of schol- mental impacts. As with Bittman and Pollan, he shares ars and popular authors writing about food and environ- the “less is better, and therefore good” attitude toward re- ment, there is also a near consensus that rejects factory- ducing consumption, an ethical and behavioral assump- farmed animal agriculture on both environmental and tion that often goes unquestioned. If such consumption welfarist grounds. Michael Pollan, , is so impactful, why not abstain? Or at least why is this and Mark Bittman all share this view, even approach chosen over others? Some ethical and psycho- 12 ISEE N!"#$!%%!& - S'((!& )*+) logical analysis would improve this argument. Localism is a second tenet of the sustainable food move- McWilliams is also critical of the alternative of pasture- ment that McWilliams tackles. Despite food miles having raised, humanely slaughtered , noting that their become a proxy for , only a small percent- methane production is substantial and the welfare stan- age of the environmental impact of food is attributable dard for their care still insu!cient. As the environmental to transportation. Production is almost always more en- impacts of seemingly more natural animal husbandry is vironmentally burdensome, even for food shipped thou- substantial, one suspects that McWilliams would be less sands of miles. As a result, McWilliams asks us to stop supportive of this practice than , who argues “fetishizing food miles.” While he does not propose a that Pollan successfully defends the 1% of animal agri- detailed, positive vision, he nonetheless has evidence on culture that is ethically defensible. In doing so, Singer his side, and forces the reader to engage with the multiple reminds us that signi"cant ethical questions about eat- con#icting values in this area. $e environment is only ing meat—for example, that the ethics of ending sentient one—importing food from poorer countries is arguably life, however humanely—remain largely unresolved, and ethically preferable to keeping money in local, wealthier that eating meat is very rarely an environmentally benign economies. While such ethical topics come up indirectly, option. Conceptually, this focus on animals strongly sug- justice is a secondary topic in the book. $e chapter on gests that the mod- fair trade heavily emphasizes subsidies, but does not o%er ern/non-modern “Of special interest to en- a substantive discussion of justice as it relates to food. and local/non-local vironmental philosophers, binaries prevalent McWilliams challenges Of special interest to environmental philosophers, Mc- in contemporary problematic, moralistic Williams challenges problematic, moralistic notions of food discourse notions of a bucolic and a bucolic and pre-modern “natural” model of agricul- might be of limited pre-modern ‘natural’ model ture, for instance traditional, small-scale, organic farms, utility in under- as solutions to environmental problems. He rejects the standing the envi- of agriculture, for instance conceptual dichotomy between “organic” and “conven- ronmental impacts traditional, small-scale, or- tional” farming practices, which do not map cleanly onto of food. It also ganic farms, as solutions to environmental or human health impacts. He is rightfully suggests that exist- environmental problems.” critical of the notion that naturalness indicates what is ing scholarship in right, or that pre-industrial agricultural landscapes are an animal ethics might play a more substantial role in agri- appropriate model for modern, high-population contexts. cultural and food ethics than it currently does. McWil- Basic is-ought distinctions and critical analysis of ideal- liams doesn’t make novel contributions to the animal eth- ized conceptions of nature can both contribute concep- ics literature in this section, but that doesn’t detract from tual clarity to such claims. $is is rich terrain for envi- his argument. Often philosophical progress is made in ronmental ethicists, who could shed light on many of the the recognition and adoption of pre-existing, sound argu- concepts used in such conversations. ments rather than in novel theories. While much of Just Food moves beyond conceptually But why criticize well-intentioned alternatives like Sala- fraught notions of environmentally better agriculture, it tin’s small-scale animal agriculture operation? Is it pos- is unclear how much it helps. While rejecting the or- sible that alternative animal agriculture unintentionally ganic-conventional distinction, McWilliams proposes a serves the role of justifying meat eating, thereby reinforc- “continuum of farming systems,” a “golden mean” and a ing the industrial practices that most think are abhorrent? “middle ground.” But like Aristotle, moderation seems Or perhaps it sidesteps the ethical question about ending "ne until we have to "gure out the details of what this life? It would be helpful to hear why McWilliams chooses perspective would look like, what metrics we would use to criticize alternative animal agriculture so directly when, to assess it, and how we ought to implement it. As with by most accounts, upwards of 99% of meat production is the chapters on meat, local food and GMOs, he solves industrial. Criticizing the sacred cows of the sustainable one problem (e.g., by rejecting simplistic, absolutist no- food movement can come across as combative, whereas tions of an environmental good, or arguments based on the common ground between McWilliams and his inter- naturalness), but raises other ones (e.g., what thresholds locutors is quite substantial. to use, or what ethical standards to adopt).

S!""#$ %&'% - ISEE N#()*#++#$ 13 When McWilliams o!ers solutions, they often require media noise and gets attention, but can do so at the cost clari"cation and justi"cation. His focus on technical so- of more subtle and accurate messaging. Very few books lutions is based on a handful of assumptions that philoso- avoid this problem, and even fewer that straddle the phers are well equipped to assess. He criticizes rejecting academic and the mainstream worlds manage to do so. GMOs based on their unnaturalness, and proposes aqua- When compared to Michael Pollan’s hugely popular Om- culture as an inexpensive protein source, but relies heav- nivore’s Dilemma, McWilliams’s Just Food comes across as ily on predicted and promised outcomes to justify them. more transparent, better researched, and ultimately more #ese arguments would have bene"ted from reference thought-provoking. to ethics and social science literature in the area, starting with Garrett Hardin, and by incorporating criticisms of Despite its shortcomings, Just Food makes important technical approaches to solving problems. points persuasively: that local food is often not environ- NFOUBMMZ QSFGFSBCMF UIBU FWFO IVNBOF BOE FDPMPHJDBMMZ Finally, a note on the tone of the book. McWilliams is oriented animal agriculture is still very resource- and cli- not a methodological contrarian (as, say, climate contrar- NBUFJOUFOTJWFUIBUBOJNBMTMJFBUUIFDFOUFSPGUIFFOWJ- ians might be) but rather, he likes to attack dominant SPONFOUBMJNQBDUTPGGPPEUIBUXFOFFEUPCBMBODFNVM- orthodoxies. Some interpret him as “lob[bing] artfully UJQMFDPOìJDUJOHWBMVFTUPBDIJFWFBKVTUGPPETZTUFNBOE  wrought little polemics that typically end up promoting that GMOs might be a viable partial solution to certain the interests of Big Food.” Such a claim e!ectively ar- agricultural problems. Even if his tone and stances are gues that those who don’t promote small-scale, organic, occasionally combative, McWilliams’s arguments might animal-integrative, anti-GMO agriculture are eo ipso de- help to move the conversation about food and the en- fending the status quo. However, this is not evidenced vironment from the outdated concepts of localism and in McWilliams’s writing, which is skeptical of most food pre-industrial models to something more appropriate for ideologies. Given that many conversations about the our current, high-population context. Is this just another various sacred cows in the food debate escalate quickly, grenade lobbed in the food wars? Some might dismiss it a heated response such as this is expected. Challenging as such, but they would miss some important arguments deeply seated beliefs is bound to upset many.1:FUìJSUJOH that don’t "t neatly into popular conceptions of food and with contrarian views, and doing so in such a self-aware the environment. way, comes with costs. Reinforcing the mainstream view that environmentalists make irrational decisions or that Christopher Schlottmann there is little substantive basis for the promotion of or- New York University ganic agriculture plays too easily into the hands of de- Email: [email protected] fenders of the status quo. Provocation often cuts through

1. and R. W. Adamchik’s Tomorrow’s Table (2010), which defends organic, genetically modi"ed foods, is one of the few counterexamples I know of.

PLANTS AS PERSONS: A PHILOSOPHICAL

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In his groundbreaking Plants as Persons: A Philosophical recognition, self-direction, learning capacity, self-preser- Botany, Matthew Hall counters the animal bias that ob- vation, and self-initiated movement. jecti"es the plant lives making up the overwhelming mass and diversity of the biosphere. His discussion supports Hall’s conclusions are not without dissenters, and true to an alternative view of the personhood of plants, present- the intentional heterarchy of his stance, he presents his ing scienti"c data underscoring plant individuality, self- ideas in a framework of dialogue, o!ering both botanical 14 ISEE N!"#$!%%!& - S'((!& )*+)