20 reasons to buy from local farmers

If you read my post Locavore: Eat Local, Eat Paleo, Eat Natrual you are aware that I am slowly making a transition to buying most of my food from local farmers and the farmers market. Here are a few reasons why you may choose to start buying from local farms.

1. Fresh. Buying locally means that the food has been picked within the last few days. A study at Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture found that on average locally grown food travels 56 miles and conventionally grown (think Costco, Safeway, Luckys) travels 1,494 miles; that’s almost 27 times longer [Checking the food odometer]. These are refereed to as food miles. In the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingslover writes “Pushing a refrigerated green vegetable from one end of the earth to another is, lets face it, a bizarre use of fuel.”
2. Petroleum. Building on the last point,  buying food locally you can effectively cut your food miles down by 2700%. I don’t need to go into the environmental benefits of this.
3. Taste. Fresh food tastes much better than something picked a week or more ago. If you make a salad, do you think lettuce harvested this morning or last week/month will taste better?
4. Seasonal. Again, building upon the last reason. If you were to eat a strawberry that was picked yesterday or eat one that has been frozen for 3 months which would taste better? Furthermore, eating food in season is generally cheaper due to the abundance.
5. Importing and exporting. “We export 1.1 million tons of potatoes, while we also import 1.4 million tons of potatoes (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)”
6. More locally grown food = healthier community. In this study The Contextual Effect of the Local Food Environment on Residents’ Diets, the “findings suggest the local food environment is associated with residents’ recommended diets.” By supporting local farms so they can flourish can help the cumulative health of a community to rise.
7. Help local economy. “Community-based agriculture has the potential for creating jobs, developing small business entrepreneurship’s and keeping precious dollars in the community (Local Organic Food & Farming Can Help Revitalize the Economy).” Another source is Local food systems and sustainable communities.
8. Future generations. By continuing to support local farmers it ensures the availability of quality food for successive generations.
9. More Variety. Super markets are focused in ‘name brand’ fruits and vegetables because they tend to appeal to a very broad market of people and need to stock vegetation that does not have a short shelf life. On the other hand, local farms don’t have such limitations and allow them to have much more variety.
10. Buying Locally Grown Food Protects Us from Bioterrorism (source). This is a little far fetched but worth considering.
11. Better for the environment. “They pointed out that organic methods can also make an important contribution. If all farms in the UK were to turn organic, then the country would save £1.1bn of environmental costs each year (Local food ‘greener than organic’).”
12. The landscape of your community. If local farms are able to thrive and increase your city will be much more pleasant to live in.
13. Taxes. “arms pay more in taxes than they cost in community services – saving expenses for every other taxpayer (according to the American Farmland Trust, for every dollar of tax revenues generated by farms, they only require 51 cents in public services; residential development, on the other hand, requires $1.25 in services for every dollar of revenue generated (Why local farms are so great)).”
14. Community infrastructure. “Farms generate important values not reflected in the cost of the goods they produce: increased water quality, aquifer recharge, riparian and upland habitat for fish and wildlife, migration corridors; keeping farms in production reduces environmental regulations, taxes, costs for public infrastructure(Why local farms are so great).”
15. Greater nutritional value. Locally grown food has a higher nutrient value due to better growing practices and less time from ground to mouth.
16. Grass fed and free range Beef. More omega 3′s, Beta Carotene, Vitamin E, and CLA.
17. Grass fed and free range poultry. Did you know that the European Union has banned all imports on US chicken due to standard farming practices?
18. Free Range Eggs Nutritionally Superior. 3 less cholesterol than commercial eggs. 1/4 less saturated fat. 2/3 more vitamin A. 2 times more omega-3 fatty acid.  7 times more beta carotene. (source)
19. Grass fed meat has a similar fat profile to wild game.
20. Closer to the source. The closer you get the source of your food it is likely to be better for you.