QUOTE : Have you noticed that there are no local consumer electronics webs, run by earnest chaps with straggly beards called Hugo and Jake who are, ‘you know, just, like, trying to make a difference by cutting down the electronics miles on people’s phones in an attempt to save the planet’? Have you clocked that there is no such thing as an artisan mobile phone? This is because we understand that different parts of the world are better suited to different tasks. You don’t own a local phone because they make them better and cheaper in China, which is a very long way from where you are. Exactly the same applies to our food. Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana – the entire US corn belt – grows so much of it because it has the right climate and the right soil to do so. Bemoaning industrial-scale agriculture in America on principle is about as sensible as criticizing China for making all those mobile phones. Which you wouldn’t do, because you bloody love your smartphone, don’t you, you dirty little digital warrior? And that sound is the penny suddenly dropping. Yes, you are absolutely right: this argument is going to kick ten tons of crap out of the local food movement. Have patience. We’ll get there.