Buying Local

Buy local, support a local small business, buy from a local vegetable farm, buy this and that local. Sounds good doesn’t it? Supporting your community is good, it’s nothing new however, for centuries people all over the world bought local. You see back then products were expensive to ship, food would spoil, bandits would rob the wagon trains, pirates would capture the ships. Today we can buy things from all over the world at a fairly reasonable cost, this has affected businesses all over, a company can produce more product than it can sell locally, it can export this product to another area with more demand for it, selling more of their goods. That could be a positive thing for the company. All of this back and forth costs money, but more importantly it causes unnecessary pollution from the engines used in the ships, trains and trucks. The local movement helps solve this, it also helps folks get produce quicker and fresher.

The problem with buying local food in particular, is how the farmer grows it, you see glyphosate is the same on the local produce as the stuff from two thousand miles away. Oh, but my farmer only uses the necessary chemicals to keep down the weeds, the bugs, blah,blah,blah. Did you ever hear of Organic farming, how about Permaculture farming? If your farmer looks you in the eye and says we do not use synthetic chemicals, we follow organic practices, and then shows you how they handle growing problems, you’ve got a good grower. You, as the consumer need to do your homework, a local CSA here has the people thinking they are raising safe vegetables, ironically early in the morning if you drive by the fields you can smell various pesticides. Now whose fault is that? The customer, because these well educated folks don’t know much about pesticides or growing food, but they bought the buy local thing hook,line and sinker.  So not only do they get local food with chemicals on it, they get the same chemicals drifting across the road as they drive to work.

The same people who don’t educate themselves on their food are the same ones who learn a lot about various diseases, they have to, that farm field they live next to, their lawn that’s treated, the bug man that sprays their house, their kids soccer field, the office building they work in, all of these places have the same basic pesticides as their local farmer is using. No wonder cancer, Parkinson’s, diabetes and so on is up.

How do I know this, I’ve watched it at the local level.