Buying Food Locally
Up until a few years ago, I never gave much thought to where my food was grown or how it arrived at my local Safeway or Trader Joes. I was much more concerned with the price of my oranges than the label on them indicating their state or country of origin. I never gave much thought to the fact that there were other costs associated with me buying those oranges than simply the price I was paying for them. These days, when I can’t make it to the farmers market, I always take care to check the labels on my produce to be sure they’re coming from either California, Oregon, or Washington. It may seem like a fairly innocuous act to walk away from oranges produced in New Zealand in favor of locally grown strawberries, but that decision has more of an effect than it would appear.
In 2001, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture wrote a paper called Food, Fuel, and Freeways investigating the fuel costs and CO2 emissions associated with transporting produce. The following are excerpts from their findings, which demonstrate significant environmental costs to buying food that is not locally grown:
“A weighted average source distance (WASD) was calculated for a sampling of data from three Iowa local food projects where farmers sold to institutional markets such as hospitals, restaurants, and conference centers. The food traveled an average of 44.6 miles to reach its destination, compared with an estimated 1,546 miles if these food items had arrived from conventional national sources.”
“Would there be transportation fuel savings and reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions if more food were produced and distributed in local and regional food systems? To answer this question, we calculated fuel use and CO2 emissions to transport 10 percent of the estimated total Iowa per capita consumption of 28 fresh produce items for three different food systems. A number of assumptions were used regarding production origin, distance traveled, load capacity, and fuel economy to make the calculations. The goal was for each of the three systems to transport 10 percent by weight of the estimated Iowa per capita consumption of these produce items from farm to point of sale.
The conventional system represented an integrated retail/wholesale buying system where national sources supply Iowa with produce using large semitrailer trucks. The Iowa-based regional system involved a scenario modeled after an existing Iowa-based distribution infrastructure. In this scenario a cooperating network of Iowa farmers would supply produce to Iowa retailers and wholesalers using large semitrailer and midsize trucks. The local system represented farmers who market directly to consumers through community supported agriculture (CSA) enterprises and farmers markets, or through institutional markets such as restaurants, hospitals, and conference centers. This system used small light trucks. The conventional system used 4 to 17 times more fuel than the Iowa-based regional and local systems, depending on the system and truck type. The same conventional system released from 5 to 17 times more CO2 from the burning of this fuel than the Iowa-based regional and local systems.
Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual savings ranging from 280 to 346 thousand gallons of fuel, depending on the system and truck type. The high end of this fuel reduction would be equivalent to the average annual diesel fuel use of 108 Iowa farms. Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual reduction in CO2 emissions ranging from 6.7 to 7.9 million pounds, depending on the system and truck type.
These fuel savings and CO2 reductions may seem small when considering total fuel use and CO2 emissions in Iowa, but our estimates represent less than 1 percent of total Iowa food and beverage consumption by weight (not including water). If a higher percentage of other foods and beverages were grown and/or processed in Iowa, the reduction in fuel use and CO2 emissions from food transport would undoubtedly be much greater.”
Though the act of buying locally may seem like a simple decision, these numbers demonstrate that it is in fact very important. And in our society, the choices of the consumer determine the future course of any industry. If enough people make the choice to buy locally grown food in the supermarket and refuse produce that is hauled in from thousands of miles away, changes will be made by wholesalers and retailers to ensure all produce is locally grown.
Better yet, go straight to the source and find a farmer’s market in your area. This way, you can find out exactly how the food was grown and where it came from directly from the person who grew it. Understandably for many people with busy lives, the issue of practicality sometimes gets in the way. It always seems so much easier to pop into a local grocery chain to pick up dinner the day of the meal rather than planning it out a few days in advance and finding your way to a farmer’s market during hours that may not be convenient. While it is possible to buy organic at larger grocery stores, it’s difficult to stay local. More often than not, produce will just have a sticker that says USA, meaning you have no idea where in the country it actually came from.
So what’s the answer if you want to find a way to support local, sustainable agriculture yet are too busy to make time for a farmer’s market a few times a week. A resource I found through the Sustainable Table called the Eat Well Guide is an excellent option. This is an all inclusive search platform that allows you to enter a zip code and/or keywords to search for sustainable businesses in your area. A cool feature is that it will immediately take you to a category list after searching on a zip code and give you the following options, among others:
- Ranches
- Butchers
- Caterers
- Co-ops
- CSA (community supported agriculture)
- Coffee Shops
- Farmers
- Farmer’s Markets
- Restaurants
- Stores
You can whittle down your search results with these categories and continue your search, which provides you with contact info, locations, and website info for all of these businesses. This is a great tool for expanding your list of vendors that promote sustainability beyond those you see at the farmer’s market.
