Local Food Movements

I'm all for buying local food when possible and practical. But what if I want local pineapple and local guava? I like lettuce for salads and for putting on a burger, but it's pretty hard for lettuce to grow here in December with short days, and lettuce sure doesn't freeze very well. Pineapple and other tropical fruits don't grow here, unless one builds a rather large facility to do so. The simple fact is that we grow what we can here with the growing season we have to work with, and we have centered our production on the things we grow best, and trade for the other things we can't grow or don't grow well. Southern Texas's Valleys don't want to waste their land and other resources growing things like wheat when other things are far more efficient and profitable, notably fresh produce and vegetables that we like in the winter time. The ideas of growing the crops suited best to our area was described best in Adam Smith's (considered the father of modern economics) Wealth of Nations book. Our system of production is far from perfect but it's the most reasonable we have given the conditions we have to work with.