Buy Local

Most fruits and vegetables at supermarkets in the United States are grown in California, Florida or Washington, which means that they're doing a lot of traveling from earth to mouth. Sometimes it's unavoidable, as not all places are as fertile as those three states. But often, the same fruits and vegetables that are shipped to us from afar are being grown nearby. This creates an enormous amount of unnecessary pollution that we can greatly decrease by buying local.

In addition to decreasing pollution, buying local also supports small farmers and strengthens rural communities. And local foods are probably going to be fresher, which is one reason that many people believe local foods taste better and are healthier.

There are many ways we can eat more locally produced foods. One is to shop at farmer's markets, where local farmers sell their goods directly to consumers. Another way is to buy directly from farmers. Localharvest.org is a great resource in this, linking consumers with "farmer's markets, family farms and other sources of sustainably grown food" throughout the U.S.

Another option is to participate in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In CSA, a group of consumers partners with a local farm. They pay a lump sum to the farmer at the start of each season and then receive regular deliveries of fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, etc. to be picked up at a central location. This system supports local farms, provides consumers with fresh goods and links consumers more closely to the land and to farmers. For more information about CSA, go here. For a list of CSA groups in the U.S., go here.

Another way to buy local foods is to look for them at the grocery store. Some stores, such as Whole Foods, have signs indicating which items were produced locally. If our local store doesn't do this, we can ask them to start.

And when we're trying to buy local at the supermarket, it's important to keep in mind what's in season, because if it's not in season, but it's available, then it must be coming from some place far pretty far away. For a list of what's in season where you live, go here.

Buying local is a big issue for food, but it's not just food. Anything that we can buy locally reduces the pollution costs of long-distance transportation. And often it supports small-scale, family operations that are likely to be more friendly to the environment than large corporations.

But all that being said, we live in a global marketplace, and some of what we have come to need is not produced locally. So it's not realistic for most of us to buy only local products. But it is realistic for almost all of us to buy more things locally, to do a better job of supporting local, family farms and to encourage large businesses, through our words and our dollars, to sell more locally produced goods.

For more information about buying local, here are two useful websites:
Sustainable Table
Food Routes