The local-produce movement has some surprisingly harsh downsides, and I'd guess that Whole Foods reassessed its strategy after battling them for years. The fir

The local-produce movement has some surprisingly harsh downsides, and I'd guess that Whole Foods reassessed its strategy after battling them for years. The first big problem is that the macroeconomics of local tend to suck. The opportunity cost associated with keeping supply constrained in a small market grows in proportion with our ability to reduce transportation costs and integrate national and international markets. Meanwhile, a fragmented patchwork of smaller farms and companies serving local markets tends toward waste: farms invest in the high-end produce they think will maximize yield per acre in the local market. Unit costs per item are higher, and nobody has incentives to produce the essential, but low-margin items that the market still needs. The second big problem is that consumers don't actually know what local means. Not really, at any rate. Enjoying blueberries in Southern California in the summer? Those aren't local. Oh, but we still want them? And we want them year round? So...I guess we're back at some combination of local + (inter)national, in which case we're still supporting factory farms, giant monocultures, and seed conglomerates -- we've just conveniently pushed these things out of our minds. But they still exist, and we haven't really solved the problems we've set out to fix. The point is, consumers want their goddamn blueberries. And their bananas, which, don't even get me started how much actual blood has been spilled over the international banana trade. (Seriously. Look up Chiquita on Wikipedia. You'll be tempted to use the phrase 'conflict bananas' after reading up. Don't use that phrase. But, like, still. Wow.) There is probably some sort of ideal market, combining the economic efficiencies of concentration with the variety and quality of specialization. I think we'd all love to get there. But this is the kind of problem Jeff Bezos seems precisely better equipped to solve than John Mackey did.