Why buy local produce? FAQ
By Annette Waya Ewing

A personal benefit of eating local fruits and vegetables is getting more nutrition per bite of food. Fresh-picked produce has a higher vitamin content than the well-traveled sort. The average veggie in the grocery store travels over a thousand miles and may be several weeks old by the time it lands on your plate.

Less pesticides and fungicides...small farms generally do not use as many chemicals as factory farms. Fungicides and preservatives are often used in the packing of produce, if not on the produce itself.

Local produce usually tastes better too, because it doesn't have to be picked before it's ripe. Local growers are more concerned with taste. Shipped tomatoes, for example, are bred to survive rough packing, travel and storage--we all know what they have lost in palatability.

I saw sign in the back window of a pick-up truck last month that read, "Support your local farmers--no farms--no food!"

This is a simple truth. Over a million acres of American farmland is lost every year to urban sprawl. Over 75% of our remaining farmlands lie in threatened urban-edge areas.

Do we really want to have to rely on foreign countries for our food supply?

Another consideration: 5 calories of strawberry from across the country uses up over 400 calories of fuel getting here. Unless you drive a long way out of your way to purchase 'local' produce, you will be helping to cut fossil fuel consumption and pollution.

The good news is that you, as a consumer, are more powerful than you might think. When you buy 'local', your money stays in your community. If each of us puts locally grown foods on the menu each week, it adds up to substantial support for the economic, environmental, physical, and future health of our area. (And by extension, the nation, and world.)

Ok, I'm convinced that we all benefit from consuming local produce! Where are some places to buy it?

Most large supermarket chains do not support local growers in a substantive way. They generally buy enough produce to stock all of their regional outlets from a single distribution point. This means non-'mega-farming' operations must find other outlets for their harvests. Large health-food grocers, such as Wild Oats and Whole Foods follow the same buying model as supermarkets, with occasional exceptions.

To locate local producers check this site out:
Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org/
or
the Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA:
http://apps.ams.usda.gov/FarmersMarkets/
or
Farmers Market.com http://farmersmarket.com/