Friday May 9th, 2008
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Buying Local....Is it really Organic or Green?
Posted by slisell612 on March 21, 2008 - 7:26pm.
I have been struggling with this issue for the last few weeks. I live in Las Vegas and we have a Farmers Market, if you can call it that, a few days a week. I was looking to buy some strawberries and asked if they were organic, the response I got left me feeling that while I was doing my part in buying local (they come from California), I was not sure I was living up to my buying organic for the Dirty Dozen.
I must admit, I did not buy the Strawberries and went straight to my local Whole Foods.
So my quandry is do I continue to frequent this so called Farmer's Market, where the produce comes from UT or CA, several hours away or continue to shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joes.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I am under the impression that it's "greenest" to buy locally grown produce even if it isn't organic, due to emissions from trucking food great distances.
However, I think your personal choices are just that - personal. If you're more concerned about pesticides for health or sensitivity reasons, then you'll probably want to choose organic regardless of whether it's local or not. (Particularly on those dirty dozen.)
For me, in addition to the green angle, I value supporting the small local farmers, getting to know who's growing my food, preserving agricultural land, adjusting my diet to the seasons, and getting food at its freshest. So I'm going to choose local at a Farmer's Market over Whole Foods every time. The fact that it's way cheaper is good too, and there's no middleman.
Of course, local AND organic would be best, along with growing your own food...and while you're at the market, you have the opportunity to lobby the growers and tell them you'd be more supportive if they committed to organic farming.
Another option that comes to mind is to go without certain foods until or unless they become available organically and locally. If you can't get strawberries that are to your liking now, maybe you could get pears instead. The "supermarket mentality" that we are entitled to produce that isn't in season, isn't indigenous to the area we live in, and takes extra resources just to get to us seems quite abnormal.
And if you're really hardcore, you can move to a part of the country where you have more access to fresh, local, organic food. I know several raw vegans who have done exactly that because their diet is so dependent on good produce.
I completely agree with you. I think my biggest struggle in Vegas, is that there is nothing 'local', everything comes in from CA or UT...so 50+ miles away.
Even experts can't agree on this one. Many argue that any environmental advantage to buying organic is negated if you are shipping over long distances. Now, I've have seen 'local' as being within 100 miles, so you may be doing better than you think. The advantage to growing from a local grower at the farmer's market is that you can nudge them toward going organic. I'm in the position that there won't be anything 'local' for at least 6-8 weeks, so if I want fresh fruits and veggies they are being shipped in.