A libertarian-leaning academic with a thick French-Canadian accent, Pierre Desrochers was in Washington, D.C., last week to present the book to what has undoubtedly been one of his friendlier audiences thus far, at the libertarian Cato Institute. He is particularly bemused by the notion that anyone would try to produce local food "when it makes no economic sense," when we have developed over the course of centuries an international and increasingly efficient system for feeding the world affordable bananas and blueberries and lamb year-round. Locavores – and their kind have popped up throughout history – have traditionally championed local food, he says, for no reason other than that it’s local.

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