Supporting Local Organic Farmers is also important!

andrea745

Hi Grow Community, Today is July fourth and our local organic farmer dropped off a shipment of food with some beautiful sunflowers as a gift of appreciation for our support of their efforts. While I would love to have the time and space to grow all my own, supporting local hard working organic farms who make a living from growing food feels like a pretty good solution for me. What do you all think? By the way, I love making jewelry, so that is what you see spread out over my table. Happy Independence Day!!! Namaste, Andrea

shllnzl

@andrea745 Happy fourth to you too. I too am trying to support farmers. I also make jewelry but finding it harder to find excuses to wear the stuff now that I am retired.

Torey

Big fan of supporting local! Even if it is not certified organic, there are many local farmers who grow without the use of herbicides or pesticides. If its local, we haven't polluted the environment, shipping things in refer trucks or ships, burning fossil fuels. Its fresher, often harvested the same day. And the money stays in the community. We are already seeing the food chain collapse, even if it is in a small way for some. Local farmers are going to be the ones to support us through that crisis.

JodieDownUnder

@andrea745 lovely sunflowers! What a nice gift. We are lucky enough to have a choice in our area of different farmers markets on different days. So supporting local farmers should be a no brainer for people. Some people are lazy, just go to the supermarket and get everything there. The buy and eat local is catching on though and can only get bigger. Like Torey says, the money stays in the community. We all try to grow our own but sometimes it's not possible to produce everything and variety is nice. Like you say, we should all support local farmers, if they're organic that's even better. I bet you enjoy your vegie box every week.

Jannajo

I have a CSA here near Montreal, actually used one for many years now (& I love it)! My basket arrives every second week, so fresh and beautiful! Payments made easy also, for the initial outlay, abt 350.00

andrea745

Thank you @jodienancarrow @torey and @shllnzl and @2majomix we also have farmers markets and a CSA (during the winter only-- our big growing season), but many have been closed here in Florida with our COVID situation. I was lucky to discover this family farm through my friend who is a Chinese Medicine and Acupuncturist. I think what we do with our money is as big a political statement as anything we can do.

dimck421

I do my very best to support local everything, from restaurants that are local owned to little local owned shops. Keeping the funds circulating in the community seems to be a sound plan! I sell my eggs, and we sell our vegetables, with the home that that $$ that goes around, comes around. :)

Helen South Australia

Beautiful sunflowers! Here is South Australia we have been lucky, as Farmer's Markets have been able to keep operating, meaning people can get home grown organic food still. Praying it stays that way!

RustBeltCowgirl

I support a local CSA and love the opportunity to try produce that I wouldn't have bought for myself in a grocery store.

Grounded

Shopping and supporting organic farmers/local farmers and local businesses is a very important individual statement, however, I believe that the discussion needs to also focus on a larger scale. For any geographic area to become self sustainable (not reliant on food/goods shipped from a distance), it requires an established local supply chain. Without a local supply chain, the organic/local farmer cannot reliably expand beyond a certain point, which is what they need to do to supply food to mainstream grocers and end-users. This transformation can not be accomplished through CSAs and farmer's markets alone.

Jannajo

My local health food store is keeping me in my juicing material, carrotts and beets of 25-50lbs. They r missing potatoes right now, just not arriving, produce is quite low, so I am happy to give them some business, then my csa, local is just great!

Cornelius

In my opinion farmers markets are the next best thing to growing your own food. The food also tastes better then supermarket food. For example I thought I hated the taste of blackberries, but it turns out if they actually have a flavor than they taste great! Who new?

andrea745

Daikon Radishes right off the farm are incredibly spicy. In the supermarkets, they taste like all the other radishes. @Cornelius