Jim Romahn wrote a column for a newspaper in Waterloo, Ontario, which dared to question the blind support of local produce.

Specifically, Romahn said,

“I have been pleased to watch the development of the movement to buy local food. It is, however, not without its flaws. Farmers need to understand that they must satisfy their customers. Simply marketing their food as local is far from sufficient.”

Romahn provided several examples of local foods that sorta sucked, and several examples of superior product.

“The take-take home message is that the buy local campaigns will fail, and even back-fire, if farmers fail to provide customer-satisfying quality and value.”

Then the letters arrived.

One local produce grower cited Canadian icon Joni Mitchell, “Hey, farmer, farmer, put away the DDT now, give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees.”

Another said “it’s more fun to shop at farmers’ markets than the big chain grocery stores, anyway. Buying local is a win-win-win situation,” with another chiming in, “I remember when eating locally was the norm and not an option. I don’t profess that it is the perfect solution, but one thing I do know is that when you looked at the horizon it was blue not brown like it is today, and there were fewer people with asthma.”

Romahn didn’t even raise food safety concerns.  That would have generated some real hate mail.