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  Chafing Under the Local Yoke

  For folks like me in rural America, prescriptions for a strictly local diet are an invitation to poverty and privation. Outside our all-too-brief growing season, the local diet in this area would be largely limited to beef, stored root crops, honey, and eggs... if we can find producers selling locally. We'd have to do without coffee, chocolate, seafood and citrus altogether.

  And if all the farmers and ranchers in this area had to survive on sales to just the 10,000 or so folks nearby, most would go out of business or pursue some other line of work.

  If we want to continue living out here, it seems we either have to grow our own crops and grind our own flours and butcher our own hogs, or endure the scorn of our privileged city cousins who think we're abusing our bodies and wasting fossil fuels and failing our local farmers.

  The neighborhood farmers' market where producers sell their goods direct to the consumer is the ideal model for the local foods movement, and for good reason. When I lived in Seattle years ago, a daily visit to Pike Place Market supplied the fixings for almost every meal. The food was fresh, the producers made good money, and our fossil fuel consumption was minimal.

  But not everyone can live in Seattle or central California or Florida. And not every farm can be located within an hour's drive of a busy market like Pike Place. Consumers need a wide selection of products available for purchase more than just once a week for a couple hours, and producers need a steady flow of buyers.

  The imperative to "eat local" should be replaced, in my opinion, with the advice to "buy direct" whenever possible. Buying direct from the producer achieves the same benefits as buying local, but without the unrealistic geographic restrictions.

  Only the farmer who grew the tomato, or who planted the corn or harvested the asparagus or raised the chicken, can tell you exactly how the food was grown. Only the farmer who sells direct to the consumer can explain how the final product was processed and brought to market.

  Buying direct from the producer, whether from a subscription farm or open-air market or by mail-order, is the best way for food shoppers to ensure freshness, quality and safety in the products they buy.

  Michael Hofferber Market Manager www.FarmersMarketOnline.com Buy Direct. Sell Global.

  On 'Extreme localism' in the New Yorker posted 2 years, 2 months ago 12 Responses