Being a responsible consumer means buying local. Whether you have a favorite farmer’s market or grow your own, the benefits are immense and far outweigh any convenience a so-called one stop shopping store has.
A locavore is a person who takes advantage of farmer’s markets to purchase their goods and sometimes even services. Locavores know how important buying local is and have committed themselves to buying as much as possible as close to home as possible. They know that the advantages to being a locavore far surpass any ease you search out from convenience stores.
There are plenty of reasons to buy local, we have put together just a few:
More variety
When you buy from local farmers you don’t just get peppers; you get semi sweets, bells and bananas, hot, jalapeños etc. Local farmers are free to be creative in their choices regarding what they grow. You may just get tomatoes at the super market, but at the farmer’s market you can find heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and an assortment of others. Not sure how to prepare that squash? Just ask a farmer, or more accurately, the farmer’s wife! She is sure to know the perfect recipe to be enjoyed by all.
Keep local money in the community
It is estimated that every dollar spent in your local community generates double that in local income. The local economy reaps more rewards from small farms because the farm is more likely to re-invest their profits in other local businesses when they need seeds and other necessities.
Community awareness
When you buy local you get a sense of community that you can’t get from buying food at your local supermarket. Spending time in and around a farm is an appealing and unique way to form lasting relationships with your neighbors, friends, family and farmers. Many small farms have activities such as hayrides and festivals as well as days you can actually tour the fields where your food is grown. Bringing children and grandchildren to a farm is a memorable way to teach nutrition and hard work.
Safe food
There are various steps that food from the grocery store goes through before it reaches your table. When you limit those steps you also limit your risk of food contamination.
Less environmental impact
In general, our food travels almost 2000 miles to get to our table. Most of that travel is done on a plane or truck which deepens our dependence on petroleum. When you get produce from your local farmer you cut your “food miles” down almost completely.
Seasonal food is always new
Think about how refreshing an ice cold drink is in the middle of a hot summer day. It’s the same idea with a farmer’s seasonal harvest; a freshly picked ear of corn is much more enjoyable when it’s the first of the season and you haven’t had one all winter.
Fresh food is more nutritious
Fruits and vegetables that were freshly picked ripe are infinitely more nutritious that anything you can find in your local store’s produce department. Food that is picked green, packaged, shipped, stored and finally sold has so little nourishment that you are better off not eating it. In order to be healthy you have to eat healthy and your local farmer knows all about that.
It just plain tastes better
A cucumber just picked is almost a completely different thing than a cucumber that was ripened in a warehouse. Sugars turn to starches, plant cells shrink and food loses its flavor and color. When you buy local, you get a superior product that tastes better than anything that has been shipped to your area. Fresh produce explodes with flavor.
Local food is a breath of fresh air
A farm in your communities helps to lesson pollution in the area and leads to cleaner air. Farms provide fields, ponds, forests and more for the area’s habitat to thrive. Wildlife uses farm land to reproduce. Farmers respect the land and preserve nutrient soil and fresh water.
Wide open spaces
Having wide open spaces protects your community from becoming over developed. In turn this keeps local taxes low. After all, a field of corn can’t go to school nor does it need police protection or snow removal or any other service that would raise taxes. Plus, who doesn’t love wide open space?
Preserves farming and farming families
The American farmer is a dying breed. Many farm families simply can’t stay in business through these tough financial times. Many farmers only make 10% of every retail dollar spent. When you buy directly from the farmer and cut out the middleman, this percentage increases to 100%.
The future
When you support your local farmer, you are ensuring the next generation will have the ability to consume fresh, healthy and flavorful food. Buying local is like an investment in your community’s future. Without your support, neighborhood farmers will cease to exist, and without farms and farmers, we wouldn’t have food.
At Freedom Farms we strive to supply the community with the freshest produce available. We pick every single day to ensure we continue to offer healthy, fresh, high quality food at a fair price. We travel daily to various farmers’ markets in the area while continuing to offer an extensive list of products in our home market located at 795 Rt. 8, south of Butler. Go to our website at freedomfarmspa.com or Facebook us to find out more about when and where you can give us a taste.
Heather DeCann works at Freedom Farms. Visit the Freedom Farms at the Flea Market on Sunday mornings this summer at Commercial Avenue and Freeport Road.
