In plugging the benefits of ?inner-city? farms this week, TIME?s Lisa McLaughlin notes:
There was a time when city dwellers could more or less provide for their own food needs, but since the Industrial Revolution, the distance from field to fork has greatly increased ? the average meal now travels 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to reach your plate. And, notes [landscape architect John] Bela, “the hidden cost of the food chain is the transport.” Thus urban agriculture aims to help people save money as well as the environment.
What Ms. McLaughlin describes as a problem is actually one of the major achievements of civilization: the increased agricultural productivity and improved transportation that have freed more and more people from being forced to grow their own food. That freedom leads to more wealth.
Perhaps a little reading about the ?division of labor? might give Ms. McLaughlin a better perspective on this issue. She could even have fun with the topic, delving into the writing of P.J. O?Rourke.
