Why local produce is better

By shopping locally you keep money in your area, which helps to sustain local producers and create local jobs. This is vital for our long-term food security, especially with an uncertain energy future and our current reliance on fossil fuels to produce, package, transport and store food. Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture reports that the average fresh food item travels 1, miles to arrive on our dinner table.

Choosing to buy your food from local sources eliminates the need for fuel-intensive transportation. Where possible, select farmers who follow organic and sustainable farming practices to minimise the environmental impact of your food. When food is closer to the consumer, they have more direct influence on the food that is produced. Take farmers markets.

Farmers that sell produce at local markets are likely to sell organic because they want to guarantee high standards to the customers they interact with, while the customers are likely to quiz them on their standards. This relationship is lacking in supermarkets. Organic means working with nature, not against it. It means higher levels of animal welfare, lower levels of pesticides, no manufactured herbicides or artificial fertilisers and more environmentally sustainable land management — this means more wildlife!

However, small, local farms are not always able afford to become certified organic, despite using organic methods. You can ask what practices they use to raise and harvest the crops. When you know where your food comes from and who grew it, you know a lot more about that food. Did you find this article useful? Please tell us why Submit. Food for Change Summit focuses on community food systems.

Program boosts amount of local fruits and vegetables in school cafeterias. How food purchasing changed in — Did we get it right? Related Content. Local farmers aren't anonymous and they take their responsibility to the consumer seriously. The wholesale prices that farmers get for their products are low, often near the cost of production. Local farmers who sell direct to consumers cut out the middleman and get full retail price for their food - which helps farm families stay on the land.

When you buy direct from a farmer, you're engaging in a time-honored connection between eater and grower. Knowing farmers gives you insight into the seasons, the land, and your food. In many cases, it gives you access to a place where your children and grandchildren can go to learn about nature and agriculture. When farmers get paid more for their products by marketing locally, they're less likely to sell farmland for development.

After World War II into the present day America has seen a drastic increase in the amount of food purchased at supermarkets. Purchasing food at supermarkets is so common place now that most people do not know where their food comes from, how it was grown or what chemical agents or hormones are used in the foods they eat.

Consumers should be more wary of this fact. Furthermore, most young adults and teens would not know how to grow or care for their own food if circumstances necessitated. By buying local foods or directly from farmers the consumer is made aware of where their food comes from and how it is grown. Any time we purchase food we trust that the grower is careful and diligent in providing for our most basic need.

By buying local foods there is a greater opportunity to ensure this trust.