Environmentalism Via Consumerism

The last Economist had an article about eco-food buying, and, specifically, questioned whether buying organics, fair trade, or locally actually helped mother earth.

Organics: The downside to using natural methods and avoiding GMs/pesticides is it takes much more land to grow the same amount. For example, since the "Green Revolution" farmers have tripled their cereal grain production while only using 10% more land. You could make a solid argument that if we push developing countries to grow more organics we would lose more rain forests.

Fair Trade: Fair Trade is when a Western consumer pays more for an item so that people in the developing country will get paid a more livable wage (Free Trade coffee seems to be the most popular one). The Economist's issue here had to do with Supply and Demand (which I didn't quite get), but had something to do with screwing up the market and making prices lower for farmers not lucky enough to be involved in fair trade. Also, I guess most of the mark-up stays with the US store (freakin' capitalist hippies!), with only 10% going to the 3rd world farmers.

Locally Grown: The problem here was 3-fold. (1) It is often farther away to buy locally (a farmer's market versus your local grocery store) and driving is the root of everything environmentally evil. Which might seem counter intuitive, but even if your food was transported from very far away, it was efficiently packed together versus just you going an extra 5 miles to get a red pepper. (2) The energy it takes to grow a food in less suitable environments can be more than the lengthy transport. For instance, a study found it was better to truck in tomatoes from Spain then to grown them in Britain in heated greenhouses. (3) By buying locally you may be decreasing money that could be going to developing countries.

Not sure where I stand on all this. I've always been suspicious of the amount of good "organic" did, but also assumed it must be a little better. And I wonder if a lot of the negatives disappear if it becomes more universal. Like, in Portland you probably live close, if not closer to a healthy grocery store where you can get local and organics. And what about the people who ride their bikes to farmer's markets? What now Economist? And isn't it supposed to taste better? Curious what others, especially the more environmentally informed, think of this whole issue.