Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Local farming in our future
A lot of us are wanting to eat more local food, and with oil prices at $134/barrel as of today, that's making more and more sense each day. But a random collection of small farms trying to do the farmer's market circuit isn't the most cost-effective way to distribute that local food. There was this article in the NY Times a couple weeks ago about the benefits of regional networks to guide the distribution of local agricultural production. In the Pioneer Valley we are lucky to have CISA - creators of the local hero campaign - who help local farmers with marketing, distribution to institutional buyers, and infrastructure needs (such as working towards a local slaughterhouse).
I know I'm looking forward to the opening of the Food Bank Farm CSA in the next couple weeks - there's one way local food gets distributed :) And I recently heard about a new service that delivers local food in the Pioneer Valley - a nice option for the busy household! We subscribed to one of these services in our time in Toronto - and it certainly was convenient to get a nice bin of organic produce automatically delivered every week! This program here has the advantage of being all local, as far as I can tell - though I suppose this means you don't get bananas or citrus ;) and they must not run year-round.
And of course there's our new co-op market! The main disadvantage of it from my point of view is that it's all the way across town, and not in a very safe biking corridor. I would love to start carpooling for grocery shopping, but if it's going to happen regularly, will take settling into a routine time to shop that works for other people.
