Dr. Sterling, for those who aren't familiar, is currently the director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) at the American Museum of Natural History, as well as a faculty member at Columbia University's Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology Department. Dr. Sterling's research has ranged from historical changes in land use in Vietnam to studying lemur populations in Madagascar.

Over the past several years, the CBC has been emphasizing food as an important biodiversity issue.  In 2004, the CBC published Living With Nature: Cooking for Biodiversity (one of the authors is Dr. Sterling), and two Healthy Eating for You and the Planet brochures (one on eating seasonally and one on avoiding produce grown with pesticides). I wanted to see Dr. Sterling's thoughts on how local food fits into the work done by the CBC.  Dr. Sterling was nice enough to agree to meet with me, so I headed over the beautiful American Museum of Natural History (if you've never, been, I highly recommend it) to have a chat with her about local food.

How do you see the relationship (if you believe there is one) between buying local food and biodiversity?

Well I think it's just what you said, that there is a relationship between the two. Some independent local farmers are working to use farming practices that encompass the farm's relationships to surrounding ecosystems. Many recent studies point to the benefits (higher yield, for instance) of maintaining near farms natural areas that can harbor native species that help pollinate crops. Local food feeds into this idea of connecting with your food provider, and farmers thinking about their communities. Smaller farms can often support a diversity of crops and strains unlike what you would find in commercial farms. The CBC also focuses on the how sustainability and diversity includes different cultural ways of life, and local, smaller-scale farming is an important, individual lifeway.

What about the relationship between local and organic food?

Organic standards can be expensive so farmers working in community-supported agriculture may be able to raise the funds needed to certify their crops and the community members like the healthy food they get. Local can certainly be sustainable and organic. But the organic label can be kind of tricky because now you have these organic brands that are large agribusiness, which doesn't ensure a local emphasis or focus on biodiversity.

What are some critiques you've come across in your research on local food?

In researching slow food, which emphasizes local farms, connecting with food providers, heirloom strains, and fair prices for all, I've read that it is "elitist." Another critique of local food is that multiple smalller trucks going a hundred miles from different places to farmers markets is worse than one big truck going across the country. A real issue with local and organic farming is land. Is there enough land to feed the world through multiple small- to mid-size farms?

Is there a local food story in particular that interests you?

I'm very interested in the apple story. Why are so many of the apples sold in New York City supermarkets from Washington or Chile when in we have so many great apples grown so close to the city? It just seems crazy!

Any last thoughts on local food or what you do at the CBC in general?

I just want to emphasize the importance of the relationships between people and life ways and the important cultural relationships between the land, food, and how land is used. The CBC's work embraces all of these factors to nurture balance and biodiversity.
(These questions and answers are paraphrased, not direct quotes. I have tried to capture the main points of Dr. Sterling's responses during our conversation as accurately as possible)