Sure you can choose to buy whatever you want. If a company decides it needs your business they might change their irritating ads or poor labour practices. Many companies are doing this for exactly that reason.
But those things have some purpose for overall good in your mind. Buying locally just because you feel some relationship with local people clearly doesn't do any good overall. It's like buying only from white-owned businesses. Maybe you do that too?
Throwing away bananas isn't wasteful if people are willing to pay for it to get what they want. I doubt there are banana farms which are specially made to be harvested, loaded onto dumptrucks and taken to the tip. Probably it's because people want a reliable supply so they need to have extras to make sure they don't run out of stock, or maybe people want unbruised bananas or whatever. Somehow people want something which can be achieved most cheaply by throwing lots of them away.
Yes I agree with you on subsidies. Subsidies are essentially the same idea as buying local, but they're more powerful, and thus more destructive.
If a farmer or any businessman can't compete then his business should be allowed to fail. That opens the door for competitors who can do the job better/cheaper. That failed farmer can they go and do something he's actually good at instead. The world doesn't exist to support businessmen, it exists to support people in general. Businesses are allowed to operate in most countries because they support people.
There's a particular society which has historically been strong supporters of the 'buy local' idea. They applied it so much, with such disregard for outsiders that they built up a strong resentment from others. Eventually the outsiders rebelled, with tragic consequences. Now they've mostly toned it down a bit. I wonder if you can guess who I'm referring to.
here's a question. If you visit another place, will you prefer to buy things made there? How do you choose which locality to have loyalty to? Is it the place that will give the most back to you? So the place you've got more future in? What if you know you'll permanently move to another country in 6 months. Will you get a head start by preferring goods imported from your future home while you're still living at your old place?
