I think there’s a broader underlying issue at stake in any discussion of local food: that of economic self-sufficiency. While Homer-Dixon draws a good distinction between world-wide products and food, I see them as two sides of the same coin.

The globalization of products and natural resources can cause the same degrading environmental, social and health damage as food can (see China). But the point is valid about complex centralized systems in general. The more complex they become, the more resource intensive and costly they become, with the only real benefit going to proxies such as multi-national corporations and transportation companies. The same thing goes for economic centralization–where the very same complex systems are put into fewer and fewer hands. I see the local food movement and the important first step in decentralizing and democratizing a world economy that will find oil resources increasingly scarce.

My commenter info also isn’t being remembered.