Time for a Change?

You need to read Time magazine’s treatment of local and organic produce, which is found in a March 2 piece called “Eating better than organic.” The cover story brings interesting insights into the consumer consciousness of an Eastern elite, full of musings about the dangers of conventional fruit, half convictions and self-important moral choices.
If nothing else, Time’s coverage confirmed to me that the local food trend is already established as the top social responsibility trend of the year.
We have been reading about variations on this theme in the European press, particularly in the U.K. There, chains are talking about the “carbon footprint” of foods, going so far as to label air-freighted foods with an “aeroplane” symbol. Kenya vegetable exporters have objected to the badge of shame, noting that agricultural production practices in Africa account for much less energy use than those in England.
The Time piece is not really a news piece as it is a “point of view” narrative. How is one man struggling with the issue of local versus organic food?
Here is how it started:

Not long ago I had an apple problem. Wavering in the produce section of a Manhattan grocery store, I was unable to decide between an organic apple and a nonorganic apple (which was labeled conventional, since that sounds better than "sprayed with pesticides that might kill you"). It shouldn't have been a tough choice--who wants to eat pesticide residue?--but the organic apples had been grown in California. The conventional ones were from right here in New York State.

The author sets up a choice between the California farmer who “rejected pesticides” to the New York growers who in some romantic sense was “a neighbor.”
I’m not saying that buying local is silly, or that consumers who choose local produce over organic produce grown thousands of miles away are ill-advised.
Far from it. I’m just saying it is above me to wrangle with the question of whether to buy a local apple – defined loosely as grown within the range of a leisurely day trip - or a California organic apple.
As for me, I might look for the conventional 5-pound bag of apples on sale, no matter the origin.
Perhaps if you sit me down and make me watch Al Gore’s film, “An inconvenient truth,” I will be changed. I don’t think so, though. I just can’t see myself internally calculating the “carbon footprint” of Southern Hemisphere fruit and recoiling in disgust.
While this social responsibility trend is beyond me, it does relate back to an issue that I feel strongly about.
I do think consumers should know if produce is grown in the U.S. or not. Just this week I was visiting with a California source who said one grower in the Stockton Delta region is taking out 600 acres of asparagus this year. Competition from Mexico and Peru has taken out a lot of production, and some growers are bitter.
Retailers who ask Stockton Delta producers what can they do for them at Easter might be asked in return: what have retailers done for them before Easter?
Consumers obviously have an interest in where their foods come from, starting with country of origin information and now encompassing the social phenomena of “local” food.
More power to them.

Back to the Time piece.
How did the author, Ben Stechschulte, resolve the dilemma?
He bought both apples.