8 Reasons to Support Local Producers (and it doesn’t need to be us!)
March, 23rd, 2023
Building a Stronger Food System - You’re investing your time (and money) to both directly negotiate and communicate with a local farmer (yay!). You’re taking out the middle man and red tape, international trade routes, and all that extra energy and resources to get food from one place to another and making decisions that align with your values (go you!).
Investments go Directly to Your Community - A higher percent your financial contributions goes directly into your local economy. When money is spent locally, about 70% goes back into the local economy, compared to only 40% when money is spent towards non-local businesses.
Creating Relationships – This is powerful stuff– buying from a local producer means that you care and they care about maintaining healthy relationships. This also means that those special varieties of beets you can’t find at the supermarket (but that remind you of your childhood) will be prioritized and that there’s room for conversations about your preferences and needs.
Stability - You’re encouraging stability in your local food supply chain. If one piece of the food supply chain is affected by changing factors– such as shipping routes, tariffs, or trade relations– your local food supplier will be there. By investing your money into local producers initially (instead of as back-up), your demand proportionally influences the amount of food they grow and can sustain. Your investment into local producers ensures a close trade relation and an abundance of accessible food!
Reducing Costs - You are reducing transportation costs and consumption of extra energy to ship foods internationally. By supporting a local producer– you are significantly reducing the transportations consumption of airplanes, shipping vessels, large trucking vehicles…. Instead your vegetables may only require a walk down the road–or a 45 minute truck commute (significantly less travel distance).
Investing in Your Health - Many people consider food a necessity– but how many people think of healthy food as an investment into their longevity and quality of life? We do! Healthy soils that have higher nutrient content means higher nutritional value of the food you’re eating. Less transport time, means less time for degradation of the nutritional quality too!
Getting Your Hands Dirty - You have the opportunity to see how your food is grown–verify the farming conditions, the quality, and usually have the option to gain a little bit of exercise in a garden with the social benefit of working within a community (if so desired)!
We Care! - Local Producers care about the soil quality and ecology of their local area and waterways– because their livelihood depends on it! All farmers care– just some have different beliefs or practices around how they tend the soil. Let me make it clear– we don’t think any farmer is intentionally harming or hurting the health of the soil or greater community. We think some people really think that in order to supply food– it needs to be grown in mass and with commercial fertilizers– the more we look into this topic though – we stray from this belief and see that there is more and more research and tangible hands on evidence to support this. That’s where the importance of small scale and local producers come in– and farms that may align with your ecological beliefs. Local producers often care so much for the soil quality that they practice soil enhancing techniques so that not only will the land be providing sustenance now– but that it will be able to nourish future generations too