The Significance Of Buying Local Food
..."spending $5.50 to buy a kilogram of tomatoes at Verquin's stand on Saturday morning will benefit the wider community far more than spending $6.37 for a kilogram of tomatoes at the local chain supermarket....
....The alternative to Verquin's locally grown tomatoes can come from vast conventional farms as far away as Boca Raton, Fla. -- a 4,800 kilometre, two-day transcontinental drive. Thanks to refrigerated trucks, low gas prices, taxpayer-built highway systems and new long-term storage techniques, most produce today travels between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres before it reaches your plate...
If Britons ate only food grown within 20 kilometres of their homes, Pretty and his team estimated the country could save more than 2.3 billion pounds annually ($5.3 billion CAD) -- the cost of transporting conventional produce, maintaining U.K. roads, and cleaning the air."...
Money that flows out forever to the coffers of those least interested in our local economy and health! The benefits of retaining our cash, knowing the source of our food, methods of growing and freshness seem to be forgotten by the our governments who are more interested in pandering to the multinationals.
Buying local is the first step in going truly organic, we need to reward the farmers who take the necessary steps to increase the fertility and nutrient quality of their soil and raise their animals on pasture. The higher cost can be offset by cutting out the middle man and the expense of transport etc.
Chris Gupta
See also:
Organic Growing Nets More Antioxidants
Corporate Takeover of Organics!
-------------------------------------The significance of buying local food Benefits go to economy and tastebuds
Karen Kleiss
The Edmonton JournalWednesday, June 01, 2005
EDMONTON - Every Saturday morning Lori Verquin loads her 1996 green Dodge minivan with homegrown tomatoes and drives an hour from her farm to the Strathcona farmers market.She makes the trip to make ends meet and because she loves to see her loyal customers go home with the tomatoes they love.
"Some even tell me they don't buy tomatoes through the winter until I come back to the market," the 60-year-old farmer says.
"They say mine are the best tomatoes they've ever tasted."
Without question, taste is the main reason Edmontonians buy her locally grown tomatoes. In a recent survey, Albertans said the quality of the produce is the number one reason they shop at farmers markets.
But there is more to be said for eating food grown close to home: advocates say it strengthens the local economy, sustains small farmers and even heals the environment.
On a good day at the market Verquin brings in over $1,000, which she in turn spends at the grocer in her home village of Sangudo (pop.398), at the farmers market and in nearby Mayerthorpe or Barrhead.
According to a 2001 survey by the New Economics Foundation, a food dollar spent locally generates nearly twice as much income for the local economy as does a dollar spent at a multinational grocer. In other words, spending $5.50 to buy a kilogram of tomatoes at Verquin's stand on Saturday morning will benefit the wider community far more than spending $6.37 for a kilogram of tomatoes at the local chain supermarket.
Jim O'Neill is the manager of the Strathcona Farmer's Market and former president of the Farmer's Market Association in Alberta. He says supporting local farmers ranks third among the reasons people give for buying their tomatoes at a farmers market.
"Obviously it gives the consumer the opportunity to actually talk to the grower," he says. "And a farmers market can make all the difference for the small family farm.
"It is a hard go in Alberta at times, and this gives the grower the opportunity to make a reasonable income."
Farmers markets across Alberta are what experts call an "alternative agricultural market" -- a title they share with regional cuisine, roadside stands and U-picks. According to a 2004 Alberta Agriculture study, these alternative markets are set for explosive growth.
Albertans spent an estimated $638 million on locally grown food last year, a figure that Alberta Agriculture expects will grow to $963 million by 2010.
"The time is ripe; consumers are showing a lot of interest in buying local," Farm Direct Marketing Specialist Marian Williams says. Her work at Alberta Agriculture connects farmers with the information and education they need to increase their profitability in marketing their produce directly to consumers.
"We really expect that the local food movement is going to grow," she says.
"That means farmers could have a future on the farm, because it means that they can have a successful business."
But growing and selling food locally isn't just good for the community and the farmer. Experts say it is good for the environment.
The alternative to Verquin's locally grown tomatoes can come from vast conventional farms as far away as Boca Raton, Fla. -- a 4,800 kilometre, two-day transcontinental drive. Thanks to refrigerated trucks, low gas prices, taxpayer-built highway systems and new long-term storage techniques, most produce today travels between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres before it reaches your plate.
To make the long haul, the tomatoes are typically plucked when they are still hard and green, which helps prevent bruising. But then they need to be bathed in ethylene gas to help them turn red before they hit grocery store shelves. They look ripe, but aren't really, which could be why people start calling Verquin in February to find out when she is coming back to the market -- she doesn't need to use ethylene gas.
"Once the tomatoes start ripening we start picking them and bringing them to market," she says.
"We only pick them when they're red, and the odd one we pick a little bit on the orange side because some people like them that way."
Big farmers and grocery stores pick green, ship and gas the tomatoes because Canada is part of a profitable, multi billion-dollar food distribution network that circles the globe. Alberta exports $12 million worth of fruits and vegetables annually, mostly to the U.S. The export industry is crucial to the welfare of Alberta farmers.
But critics like Jules Pretty, a professor of environment and society at the University of Essex, say large-scale conventional farming -- and the food distribution system that underpins it -- degrades the environment, fuels climate change and damages infrastructure that citizens pay to fix.
In a study published in the March 2005 edition of the Food Policy journal, Pretty and his colleagues tallied the total costs of industrial food distribution systems. They found the environmental impact of importing coffee beans from South America was almost irrelevant when compared to the cost of trucking conventional produce across the country.
If Britons ate only food grown within 20 kilometres of their homes, Pretty and his team estimated the country could save more than 2.3 billion pounds annually ($5.3 billion CAD) -- the cost of transporting conventional produce, maintaining U.K. roads, and cleaning the air.
"We need to localise food systems within countries as much as we possibly can," Pretty says.
"You eat food and you buy a farm at the other end of the food system; those choices matter hugely."
"The most political decision we make on a daily basis is what we eat."
kkleiss@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2005
posted by Chris Gupta on Thursday June 9 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2005/06/09/the_significance_of_buying_local_food.htm
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