Sustainable foods? Local? I'm sure there's questions.

Local vs. sustainable

Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities. Sustainability includes buying food as locally as possible. Buying local food does not guarantee that it is sustainably produced. Pesticides, chemical fertilizers,factory farming, hormone use, and non-therapeutic use of antibiotics can all be involved in local food production, so it's important to make sure that the local food you buy is from farmers or gardeners using sustainable methods.

Economics of localwww.sustainabletable.org

The significant difficulties of earning a living wage as a farmer are often masked by headlines about subsidies and record high crop prices. In reality, farmers are earning less producing crops these days than they did in 1969, despite the fact that American farmers have almost doubled productivity over the past four decades. Farmers aren't just earning less, current prices do not even cover the cost of production. Until just recently the difference between farm income nationwide and what it cost to grow and raise American crops could be counted in the billions.⁵To make ends meet, and often to get health insurance, more than half of American farmers work a second off-farm job.⁶

Buying locally or directly from farmers can dramatically increase a farmer's income. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener's Association published a study that demonstrates what would happen if consumers shifted 1% of their purchasing power to buy locally grown products: farmers would see a gain of 5% in their income.⁷ Even better, buying direct from a farmer sends 90% of those food dollars back to the farm.⁸ Increasing farm income means more money can be spent locally by the farmer to run their business and home, helping keep the local economy alive.

Annually, Americans consume more than $600 billion⁹ in food. In most communities today food is purchased entirely at a grocery store or market, with only about 7% of local food dollars staying in the community.¹⁰ The other 93% of the modern food dollar travels to pay processors, packagers, distributors, wholesalers, truckers and the rest of the infrastructure that a global food system demands, a stark comparison to 40% in 1910 by contrast, 40% of food dollars spend remained in the local economy.¹¹ When more food dollars stay in the community, through buying local, they are transformed into thriving main streets and local jobs.