Published: August 15, 2008 10:37 am            

Extension Service – buy local!

This is the final article in the New Year’s resolution ideas series (it has taken more of the year than I expected to finish it!), and the topic is “support local farmers.”

It was encouraging to be at Asheboro’s Downtown Farmers Market last Saturday and see all the people there shopping and selling.

Free ice cream in celebration of “Peach Day” didn’t hurt, but business has been pretty good there on other recent Saturdays, as well.

A grower told me that the market had the best crowds this year of any year in which he’d participated. That’s nice to hear, as someone who wants to see local farmers do well.

FYI, the Asheboro Downtown Farmers Market is open on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursdays from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Last year, our office and N.C. Cooperative Extension as a whole did something called an “environmental scan.”

This was basically a needs assessment to find out what issues were most important to residents of, in our case, Randolph County. We found the number one expressed issue to be farmland or green space preservation.

Randolph County has a number of features to recommend it, such as pretty scenery, a “small town” feel (in some places, at least), proximity to a major city, a central location in the state, and a low cost of living, in comparison to many parts of the country. It’s not surprising that people are moving here.

With an increasing population often comes more development pressure on rural areas, including farms. Randolph County does have a present use value taxation program, through which qualifying agricultural land and forestland is taxed at a lower than market-value rate, and two land conservancies – Piedmont Land Conservancy and LandTrust for Central North Carolina – are active in the county.

However, the most straightforward, in my mind, and “free market” way for the public to help preserve farms, and thus farmland, is to buy from them.

Many who buy locally do so for the freshness and flavor. When people breed fruits and vegetables to last long enough to be shipped over considerable distances, taste is not always one of the top priorities (although, I will say that some produce with good shelf life does have a very good taste).

Also, produce is sometimes picked earlier than would be ideal, taste-wise, when farmers need it to hold up for a longer period of time. Produce sold locally, on the other hand, can often be picked the day or day before it is sold.

Another reason that some people buy local food is its perceived environmental superiority. Food purchased at farmers markets selling local produce doesn’t travel nearly as far as that which comes from Chile or California. Travel, of course, usually involves fossil fuels.

However, there are instances when local food may not necessarily be the most fossil fuel efficient. There was an article in the “Economist” in December 2006 that referenced a study finding that it was more energy efficient to ship tomatoes from Spain than to grow them in greenhouses in England during the winter.

The results of such a study would depend on how the greenhouse was heated, by what method and how far the produce was shipped, etc.

Another statement made in the same article was, “a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains, and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being traveled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.”

Tom Philpott (www.grist.org) responded, pointing out that just because the setup for hauling food long distances is now better developed than the local foods infrastructure doesn’t mean that the logistics of local foods can’t be improved.

When a central purchasing location, like a farmers market or a supermarket that buys local produce, is available close to where people live, the prospects of coming out ahead in terms of fossil fuel use seem much better.

Randolph County has a number of fruit and vegetable growers, not to mention beef, dairy and poultry farmers, or those who raise field crops.

Some are large enough to justify having their own store or having large amounts of fruits and/or vegetables at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market, while others are smaller but nevertheless sell considerable quantities of produce at one of the area farmers’ markets, from their house, or through another venue.

Some of our local growers are listed on the following Web sites: www.ncfarmfresh.com, www.localharvest.com and www.slowfoodpiedmont.org.

While it doesn’t have any fruit or vegetable growers yet, this Web site has two local livestock farms (as of the end of July) and may have others in the future: www.carolinafarmstewards.org.

You’re also welcome to give me a call to find out more about where local produce is available. If you want to see local produce sold in more stores or served in restaurants, you can express that to the managers or chefs.



Mary Helen Ferguson is a horticulture agent with the Randolph County Center of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Asheboro. She can be reached at (336) 318-6003.

        

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