What would happen if each person bought just $5 more per week of food directly from a local farmer?

[marmar]

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/emerging+food+systems


from Food First:



What would happen if each person bought just $5 more per week of food directly from a local farmer?
Posted January 19th, 2012 by admin


This is a question the Ken Meter of the Crossroads Resource Center addresses in a report on Indiana.

The study combines economic data and close interviews with more than 100 Hoosier food practitioners to show how the state's food system has adapted to changing circumstances. Food business clusters, growing in Indiana since the mid-1970s, are now taking root in commodity producing regions. Young members of the Indiana Farm Bureau are positioning themselves for a future of farming that may be very different than the past, knowing that if each Hoosier spent less than $5 per week buying food directly from Indiana farms, this would generate $1.5 billion of new farm income for state farmers—a 20% increase in farm revenue.

Read the report, Hoosier Farmer? Emerging Food Systems in Indiana.

Shorter summaries of the report, and many other food system resources, can also be linked from http://www.crcworks.org

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[roguevalley]

15. would love to but I live in Alaska. It is just now warming up from two weeks of -22

In the summer I buy stuff from the locals and we have a fruit truck that comes up twice a month with that. Our punkins are ginormous and our potatoes sometimes are hollow they grow so fast and big. I would love to.

[handmade34]

2. excellent... recommend that everyone do this

info...

http://www.localharvest.org/store/

[justiceischeap]

3. I try to get my produce from Washington's Green Grocer

Our priority and focus from the start has always been to provide excellent quality produce and locally and regionally produced products as well as stellar customer service to every customer while helping to grow, support and encourage sustainable local agriculture...and to have fun doing it!

http://bit.ly/z2t1ym

[sunflowerseed]

4. What would happen if each person

Grew their own?

[justiceischeap]

5. For me that's just not feasible.

I tried last year to do a container vegetable garden on my deck and I got one zucchini and a beautifully full tomato plant that developed brown rot. I would love to try and grow kale but I don't have the space for that. I live in a condo community and there are rules about what you can grow and vegetables planted in the ground is against the rules. The list for a community garden is years long.

[shraby]

6. One huge problem with that..veggies don't grow in the winter through a couple

feet of snow. There is no local produce in the north in the winter.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Three things to consider: season extenders, storage, and farm products.

Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 09:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Season extenders like hoop covers to insulate against frost and to keep the soil warm enough to encourage growth can add weeks or months to the fresh growing season in northern areas, thus cutting down on the season when nothing can grow.

Simple, effective, low tech storage solutions (think root cellaring but on a barn level) allow growers to sell root vegetables, cabbages and other long storage vegetables as well as some fruits like apples as "fresh" produce. Sure, they're not as fresh as straight from the field but they're at least as fresh as the ones sitting in the supermarket.

Then there are farm products, which include jams, sauces, pickles, cheeses, meat, etc.

Indoor winter markets are taking off in colder northeastern areas. The above describes some of the fresh items and products my friends are finding in such markets in New England.

[handmade34]

11. another consideration

...sprouts are easy to grow (for fresh greens)

it would be a positive thing to become less dependant on many of the products that we truck in at great expense

and... if needed community coops are a great way to help the local economy and eat better

[Gormy Cuss]

14. I think it would be nice if we remembered how earlier generations lived locally.

People survived (well, some of them did) in very harsh climates with very little imported food. No one wants to go so far back that we have an unreliable food supply but there seems to be growing interest in knowing where our food is from and feeling some connection to it - why not exploit that interest and making small scale, local production more viable?

You're right about sprouts. I don't know how I missed that today of all days, as I hauled out the sprouter to start some radish seeds and planting peas in a flat indoors with an eye towards harvesting them as pea shoots.

[hughee99]

7. Would local farming become profitable enough that large corparations

would start buying up local farms?

[appleannie1]

8. I always buy my produce at the farmer's market in summer. It is fresher and tastes better.

[Avalux]

10. I just signed up to use Greenling.

Home delivery of local/organic produce and other foods. Figured I'd give it a try; prices are decent, it's convenient and a great way to support local farmers.

www.greenling.com

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. Monsanto would get mad. Laws would be passed to crack down on such practices.

[dembotoz]

13. all depends on the cost of the item

buy some at farmers markets during the summer

some is reasonable
some not so much