When we look on our shelves we see a variety of products from all over the world:  oranges from Spain, spices from China, wine from Chilli.  While it is great to have this kind of selection, we have to remember that it often comes at unseen costs.

Getting the food here in the first place required extensive shipping, probably first by plane or freighter from the growing region and then by truck or van to your supermarket shelves.  As our transportation network is presently dependant on fossil fuels, this shipping releases large amounts of pollutants including CO2, the number one green house gas.  

Much of the food in super markets is produced industrially, which often means that it is grown in vast monocultures (1 plant growing in 1 area) of cash crops.  This is destructive to soils and local biodiversity and undermines the cultivation of products that would have immediate value to locals.  Industrial farming is also dependant on tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, packaging and marketing, all of which eat up more resources and fossil fuels and result in the release of toxic chemicals and practices that place tremendous stress on the environment.

At the end of this system the consumer receives a product that is thoroughly detached from them through a long chain of manufacturers, retailers and sellers (each taking a cut of the profit so that the farmer receives very little in return), and often covered in harmful chemicals and preservatives and robbed of their nutrients.  

Local food systems are an alternative to global, corporate models.  By growing what you can and buying the rest locally (and ideally organically) you:

• Remove the middle man, returning much of the profit to the famer and local business (or back to your wallet if you are the grower!).
• Reduce much of the environmental destruction by cutting out shipping (and, in the case of organic products, the use of harmful chemicals and practices).
• Eat fresher food, seasonal food, living without all of the harmful chemicals and preservatives of processed food and giving you a deeper sense of connection to the place you live.  In the long run this may save you money in health bills.

But what exactly does “local” mean?  How local is local?  

Unlike organic or fair-trade products, “local” food doesn’t have a firm definition and can mean different things to different people depending on where they live, what they like to eat and what their local growing conditions are like.  Practically speaking, ‘buying local’ means consciously reducing the distance from field to plate as much as you reasonably can.  Ideally, we would all grow what we could in our gardens and window boxes.  For some items this may be easy, but other products might have to be purchased and come from further away, and yet others may have to be shipped long distances.  

While at first buying local may seem more expensive an inconvenient, if you seek out cheap, local options you may find them:  farmers markets and organic vegetable box schemes are great places to start.  When we see the cheap price tag of the item in the super market we have to remember that it doesn’t represent the true cost to ourselves or to the environment!