Buy Local

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Buy local!

If one takes a look at the Talmud, one would find an overwhelming number of the laws pertain to agriculture. For hundreds of years, the Jews were a nation of farmers, something that seems almost comical today. In fact, outside of the state of Israel, most Jews live in urban and suburban areas, rarely venturing out to the rural lands that encompass much of this country. This flock toward the big city has created a real disconnect between Jews and the land, a relationship that dominated the Jewish identity for so many years.

The concept of buying locally grown produce only exists as something unusual for the past century or so. Modern agricultural practices now reward farmers for mono-cropping (growing only one crop), and subsidize farmers as part of an intricate system meant to keep the prices of staples down and the profits of American farmers up. While this has been beneficial to some, it has caused many environmental and economic problems, as land is being destroyed through poor agricultural practices, and mega-farms have replaced the small family run operations.

Here is some background information on current agricultural practices:

Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce imported from Mexico, Asia, Canada, South America, and other places.

Cheap energy and agricultural subsidies facilitate a type of agriculture that is destroying and polluting our soils and water, weakening our communities, and concentrating wealth and power into a few hands.

So what can we do about this? Buy local!! Oftentimes certain eco buzz words get thrown around and their meaning is lost. Many people make sure to buy only organic foods without realizing the impact of having those foods shipped from so far away. Buying local is just as important as buying organic.

By buying local you'll be helping preserve the environment, and you'll be strengthening your community by investing your food dollar close to home. Only 18 cents of every dollar, when buying at a large supermarket, go to the grower. 82 cents go to various unnecessary middlemen. Cut them out of the picture and buy your food directly from your local farmer. Even big cities have regular farmers markets, which make buying directly from the farmer very easy, and quality of the food and the people tends to be great.

For more information on buying local, check out: http://www.localharvest.org/buylocal.jsp

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