For those who can get up on a Saturday morning and head to Capitol Square, the Dane County Farmer's Market presents an unquestionably fun and tasty experience. Undoubtedly, many students have already taken advantage of the market since arriving in Madison for the school year. For those who haven't, I encourage you to get some friends together and take the walk around to the Capitol this upcoming Saturday. It's a delightful time, and you won't regret missing that extra hour of sleep to check out what it has to offer. Although the Farmer's Market functions beautifully as a place to acquire fresh produce and get a little more personal than your average grocery store, the walk around Capitol Square does disquiet me a little bit. In particular, the market's assertion that buying locally grown food is inherently superior leaves me scratching my head and wondering if I have missed something. Let's take a look at some of the merits that are commonly cited to support this argument. Obviously, one of the well-publicized points in favor of buying locally is the relatively better freshness and taste of the produce. A related position stresses how much the environment is helped by not transporting the produce over long distances. Finally, buying local supports family farms and helps the local economy. At face value, it may seem that these three arguments are true. However, while the taste advantage may be true, the other two arguments are disconnected with reality, particularly on the economic front. Basic economics suggests that a region, state or country should specialize to some degree in producing what that area can grow best. Furthermore, some areas simply can't sustain certain types of agriculture. Hence, Wisconsin specializes in dairy farming, and Florida grows citrus crops. Luckily for consumers in the United States, our well-developed transportation system allows producers to get their product from its place of growth to the marketplace. As long as it is cost-effective, why shouldn't you buy produce from wherever it is most easily and cheaply produced? After all, that is going to be the most efficient outcome. It ends up being a win-win situation for both producer and consumer. A common rebuttal to this argument is that the long distance transportation of produce is environmentally destructive and contributes to global warming. Yet this argument has holes in it as well. In absolute terms, a shipping company may pollute more than a local farm taking produce to market. However, in terms of the most efficient solution, having a shipping company load a semi-trailer full of produce and ship it 500 miles, may be more efficient than having 20 farmers drive their pickup trucks 20 miles each. It certainly seems within the realm of possibility. Plus, for concentrated metropolitan areas such as Milwaukee, Chicago, or New York City, buying locally just isn't feasible. There is simply no way that local produce will ever allow more than a small percentage of people in those areas to purchase it without trucking or railing it in from miles away. For those people who are worried about environmental damage, they should take solace in the fact that rising fuel prices will almost certainly lead to less long-distance transportation and more efficient methods. Finally, I'd like to address the support of small family farms in the "buy local" philosophy. The commonly expressed notion that family farms need to or should be supported seems to me to be a somewhat misguided concept that stems from an overly rosy view of the past. It is true that as late as 1900, 42 percent of the population lived on farms. Yet a century later, only 2 percent of the labor force continues to rely on farms for direct employment. The mass migration from rural farms to urban centers provided the labor that fueled economic expansion in the 20th century. Beyond the economic benefits of escaping the farm, a lot of those people left the countryside because farm life isn't some sort of paradise. Long hours and hard outdoor work aren't descriptions of many people's ideal job. I suspect many "buy local" supporters are somewhat blinded to this fact and tend to glorify the small farm tradition of the past. Although this is harmless on the scale of a farmer's market, when it comes to supporting national farm subsidies, this misguided view can cause actual harm. The Dane County Farmer's Market remains one of my favorite Madison destinations and a good place to mix with friends and fellow citizens. That said, it is always important to keep an open mind and question that which is often handed down as fact, even if it's at the hands of something you enjoy. Andrew Wagner ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in computer science and political science.