We Have Probably Twice the Trucks and Truckers We Need.

[Ron Green]

If Americans were to reduce our consumption of unnecessary imported “goods” and to change our eating habits to support local food systems, we’d need far fewer over-the-road trucks than now crowd the highways and occasionally block the streets in support of right-wing causes.

[lame54]

1. Not every area is a food supplier

[Sherman A1]

6. Precisely

The idea while perhaps well intentioned, isn’t really workable.

[TheBlackAdder]

23. This will be another just another nail to drive trucking firms to use driverless trucks.

[TheRealNorth]

2. What?

I would like to see trucks replaced by trains and barges where appropriate, but I think your idea is a political loser.

Plus, most of the truckers and trucker unions don't support these clowns.

[Ron Green]

3. My idea is to eat better and to reduce consumerism.

If you consider that a “political loser,” I’ve gotta question your politics.

[TheRealNorth]

8. I am just saying that I don't think your idea is going to be popular with the average swing voter

But maybe that's your point - advance an idea that would be unpopular let alone impractical.

[Ron Green]

28. I think maybe popular and "practical" ideas are what

got us here in the first place: out of balance with other nations and with the planet itself.

Many, if not most, of the responses in this thread are that things are just this way and it’s impossible to change them.

[Gore1FL]

9. My politics are liberal. I don't see reducing food choices as eating better. YMMV nt

[Amishman]

10. You are advocating austerity, which is never popular

However I do see a lot more appeal right now of self driving trucks. They've been in development and are close to viability, time to accelerate what was already inevitable

[walkingman]

4. F'em and the truck they road in on.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Lol at "local food systems."

[WarGamer]

7. yeah that'll work well.

[Zeitghost]

11. The Garden Fallacy...

as I like to put it, is the idea that if everyone ate local or grew there own food we would be far better off and it's simply not true.

The efficiencies of scale and specializations in large scale production agriculture far outweigh the costs. We feed more people, cause less environmental damage, use fewer resources, have a smaller carbon footprint, provided a more varied diet, keep food prices lower, etc. etc. (i could go on and on) using modern industrialized agricultural practices. They are quite literally the only thing standing between humanity and a Malthusian catastrophe.

[Ron Green]

15. It's sad to read your response and know you really believe

that agribusiness is the way forward. Not only are some of your assertions just wrong, but your point of view supports the way we’ve grown out of balance with the earth as we’ve grown this enormous, unsustainable population.

[NickB79]

17. He's correct; you are not

And there are studies to support his position.

Agriculture that appears to be more eco-friendly but uses more land may actually have greater environmental costs per unit of food than "high-yield" farming that uses less land, a new study has found.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180914154350.htm

You do nail the core problem though; a large, unsustainable population. However, reducing that to a sustainable level probably requires a 50% reduction in population within the next 75 years, which would require utterly catastrophic action.

[Zeitghost]

18. It's a simple math problem

Yields in small scale production don't support current populations. Your own post alludes to that. It's large scale food production or death and starvation for the poorest on earth. Your choice.

[DonCoquixote]

21. enormous, unsustainable population.

So who has to die in order to make your world greeener? That is always where the only eco line ends up.

[petronius]

12. Driving across the country this summer I saw a truck with a sign on the back saying

something like "Don't like trucks on the road? Then don't buy crap!" Seemed reasonable...

[CrackityJones75]

13. What do I eat in MN for like 6 months?

[Lurker Deluxe]

16. well ...

I would assume something frozen.

There is always, snow ... watch out where the husky's go and all that.

[CrackityJones75]

19. LOL!

[Ron Green]

26. What did your great-grandparents eat for, like, 6 months?

[JanMichael]

27. Kids. It is why they had so many back then for extra food.

[Mr.Bill]

14. I remember in the 50s and 60s when I was kid,

Some of the items in the produce department were somewhat seasonal. It actually was enjoyable to anticipate when the season came for some of your favorites. And I don't think there was anything unhealthy about it. It made you learn about trying different things and making substitutions. It made you learn about different foods.

Over the decades we have moved to a system where we can get anything at any time of the year. This, of course requires shipping some items long distances. I really don't need a mango in January, or fresh corn on the cob 365 days of the year. It's more about pleasing the consumer than about doing things in the most efficient way possible. And we pay a price for it at the cash register.

I still try and eat seasonally fresh local foods as much as possible. The food is great, although different at different times of the year, but cheaper overall. It makes me have a better understanding of local foods and has taught me to try different things.

I will grant you that I am fortunate to live in California, where there aren't many foods we don't grow.

[Wounded Bear]

20. Capitalism carries a false premise that it is somehow more efficient...

not really true.

[ForgedCrank]

22. The issue with food is

that there are few local food sources still in existence.
A family farm is almost impossible to keep alive these days on the scale that once was. Large corporate farms have pretty much taken over that realm. A lot of it was taxes, and then the regulation of required chemicals, etc. Not to mention the commercialization of seed sources and that whole saga. It's just not really possible anymore under current conditions and regulations.
A guy could make extra change maybe working a few hundred acres of generic soybean or corn crop, but that's peanuts in the scope of things, and can't really feed the population directly either. Much of the corn is being ground into mash for ethanol fuel production, further increasing the cost of livestock feed and other things. It's a mess.
Our other issue is that we simply don't manufacture much anymore, at least compared to 30-40 years ago. 90% (wild guess) of the items in our homes are sourced from foreign products and materials. We have very few options to buy anything that is 100% sourced and manufactured in our own country, let alone locally.
We really have gotten ourselves in a bad spot, and it was all about cheap everything. Consumers demanded cheap, so that's what they got. Now we are locked in.

[Ron Green]

24. What you describe is true; the important question is

Do we do anything about it? There are people all over this country working on new and creative ways to reconnect people with their food, and with life itself. Living asleep is both the cause and the result of allowing accumulators and aggrandizers to steal our planet from us, and sell it back to us in too many trucks.

[bluecollar2]

25. As a small grower in South Florida I understand the dynamics

Quite well.

In Miami-Dade county there exists a currently viable food production industry however urban sprawl is rapidly reducing the available land. If the developers have their way there will be no land to farm very soon and all agricultural production of any consequence will cease to exist.

Large row crop operations ( tomatoes, squash, beans, corn) are giving way to smaller niche market crops...

It's a complex problem but one that needs to be resolved.