Some quotes:

“Recent research by Danish and American scientists suggests that if all agriculture was organic, the slight decrease in yields in the northern hemisphere would be more than matched by overall increases elsewhere, leading to a slight increase in total food production”

“Ethically minded consumers can best save the planet by avoiding meat, the process of which, such as providing food for livestock, uses energy and resources”

“By exaggerating the social and environmental benefits of ethical production they provide some much-needed balance to big food and drink companies, which have shown remarkably little leadership on such critical social issues as consumer health and global warming”

“Have you considered that people might buy local strawberries because there is a better chance that they will taste like strawberries and not like cucumbers?”

“It is not clear to me why anyone needs to eat a tomato in winter, whether it is from Spain or from a local greenhouse”

“The smallest garden or patio full of vegetable pots can produce enough to supplement food bought at a supermarket”

Hi Mauro–

Controversial, indeed. 

Here’s a link to a post in a blog I read from time to time.  The Economist article got a lot of people worked up.

Cheers–

MRE 

The *only* benefit you *necessarily* get from buying foods locally is that the food has not been trucked about, saving transportation costs. It still may have been raised crappily though. Local to me are some chicken factory farms raising chickens just like the description given above. also local to me is a feedlot where the cattle are kept in barns year-round and the surrounding fields grow corn which is hauled into them. The animals live in little kennels the first few months of life so as not to waste space in the production barn; once they get into the production barn, they live in manure up to their knees the rest of their lives. Driving by on the road, you can barely avoid gagging.

The real benefit to local is you can *know* how your food was raised. Like I *know* not to buy beef from that feedlot or chickens from the batteries.

*Also* local to me is a guy who’s been raising grass-fed beef for decades and won awards for it and such. In fact, he’s just a couple miles away, but I didn’t know he was there! I found out online. Click here for a good source for finding local farmers.

Aside from generic discussions of buying from local farmers, I want to add a plug for CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). Local Harvest also has lists of CSAs and I am going to preach about CSAs for a moment because it’s something I do. I don’t run one, and I raise most of my produce myself being a major gardening type person so I don’t buy from one, but for those who aren’t into gardening, CSAs are a great way to buy the majority of your produce.

Basically, a CSA works on a subscription basis, you pay a farmer so much for a subscription and you get a basket of food throughout the local growing season. Various CSAs are organic or just “natural” (not springing for the cost of organic certification), etc. How many weeks you get the basket depends on the growing season where you live, and if a particular CSA extends the season with greenhouses and coldframes and such,

Getting a big basket of fruits and vegetables that you have to use up before the next delivery does *wonders* for one’s diet in health terms. And because the food is in season, it’s also much more scrumptious than a diet based on grocery store purchases. There is just no down-side at all!

Some CSAs offer “extras” such as eggs, meat, cheese and butter, etc. as well as the basic produce basket. Sometimes it’s stuff they raise themselves and sometimes they are marketing for neighbor farmers.

Many CSAs have newsletters or on-farm events for their subscribers so you can “be a part of it” even if you don’t own a single square foot of gardening space. Some CSAs allow you a discount on your subscription if you volunteer on the farm.

There *is* a CSA near you, even if you live in the city. I live very rurally, but one of the larger CSAs near me does weekly deliveries to Philadelphia.

Basically, if you can’t raise it yourself, a CSA is the next best thing. You can pretty much get fresh, wholesome produce anywhere from 4-9 months of the year… and if you’re into preserving, you can buy extra to put up for when the CSA is not producing.

P.S. For the poster who wants eggs in MA, check out the Dominique breed. This bird was raised by pioneers because it could overwinter without shelter. We raised them for several years and they not only provide eggs, but go broody and raise their own chicks, so produce meat as well. We began with 40 day-old hatchlings and raised all our own eggs and chicken meat for several years. I used Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia for reference when I began; it was quite sufficient info. WARNING: Butchering is not fun. Knowing the animal you’re eating had both a good life and a good death is worth something though.

Hi jpatti–

Thanks for writing and thanks for the link to Local Harvest. I’m more than happy to let you put out the word for CSAs on this site.

Best–

MRE

Thomas Freidman is an incredible twit. He may get it right verrrrrry occasionally, but he is one of those who painted the future of Iraq and the Middle East with a rosy glow, based on the fumes emanating from his imagination and the misinformation of the current adminstration, which he didn’t bother to verify with hardcore, non-corporate journalists, who all would have told him RIGHT AT THAT TIME that he was full of cowplop. I’m tired of opinion columnists who don’t know to check their facts before formulating an opinion and foisting their blither on an unsuspecting american citizenry. All corporate owned papers are full of them.

I knew from the very outset that the war and subsequent goals were all a crock, simply because I know who the real journalists are and read the info. Every bad outcome that these journalists extrapolated would happen has.. and more.

Hi LCforevah–

You’re right.  Thomas Friedman was, like John Kerry, for the war then against the war.  He first came out saying what a wonderful thing it would be to create a democracy in Iraq and what an opportunity we had to do so.  Now, you would never know he once had those delusions.  I don’t think, however, that he is much of a fan of the current administration.

And you’re also right about what would happen were we to run out of fuel overnight.  It would be an unmitigated disaster.  That’s why rational people would like to see great strides made quickly to wean ourselves from Middle Eastern oil, which is one of the (verrrrry occasional) ways in which Friedman has been right.  He’s been recommending that strategy for ages.  I count his refusal to push for an alternative fuel one of the major failings of the Bush administration.

Best–

MRE

Hi Dave–

I don’t know of any resources, but I’ll throw up your comment for others to comment on.  Surely someone out there can help you out.

Cheers–

MRE

Hi Martha–

It is indeed time consuming to prepare from “cluck to pot,” and I can’t say as I’ve actually done it with any kind of fowl.  I’ve watched my grandmother do it a thousand times.  I have cleaned plenty of squirrels and rabbits, however.  It’s not as much work since you don’t have to get rid of the feathers.
Thanks for the comment.

Cheers–

MRE

They can only process what they’re allowed to; the “Mrs.” part of this farming family told me that although they sell duck eggs, there are no processing facilities approved anywhere in the state for the ducks themselves, and they are not allowed to process the ducks on the farm. So I can buy duck eggs but not duck — unfortunately for me!

The reality of how they operate may not be quite as idyllic as how it was when you were growing up in Missouri. I believe I have heard her talking about getting chicks to raise as either layers or meat chickens. I don’t think they leave reproduction to chance. And I know they don’t sell the layers as meat when they have reached the end of their laying usefulness.

Still, once the chicks have arrived on their farm, they stay there, run around outside, eat whatever chickens eat, and then are transported minimally: to and from the processing facility and then to the farmers’ market, where I gratefully buy as much as will fit in my freezer. Still uses less oil or other resources than a chicken that came from who-knows-where.

Thanks for an interesting post as usual! –Anne

Hi Anne–

A chicken that comes from down the street has got to result in less oil use than a chicken that comes from the other side of the country.

This whole idea of ‘approved processing plants’ is idiocy foisted off by our friends at the USDA.  Once the local food movement really gets going, someone, somewhere will have the political clout to get the regulations changed.  Or, I suppose, we could do like a lot of farmers do who let people come onto their farms and pick there own.  They could make facilities available, let us purchase ducks on the hoof (or on the web?), and process them ourselves.  Would probably not work for the squeamish, but I think it’s a good idea for people to see where their food really comes from.

Cheers–

MRE

Nowadays, even “small, local” farms are not that different from the “big” ones. The small ones may even use more energy per hen by missing some economies of scale the big farms have.

I agree completely with the energy dependency issue, but in the chicken thing the author completely missed the mark by depicting a “cartoonic” version of reality. As a chicken farm, the author is an excellent economist.

Hi Mauro–

Uh, it may be cartoonish, but that’s how my grandfather raised chickens on his farm when I was a kid.

See the next comment.

Cheers–

MRE

Interesting that a multitude of variations of the “Hundred Mile Diet” now exist on the net in response not only for climate change/oil independence related food source selection, but also the desire for connection with your local farmers and better quality, organic and humanely raised produce. Funnily enough, once you start to examine what goes on your plate in this way, for the vast majority this will mean no more bread, pasta, rice … or sugar!! Hmmm, does that sound familiar?

Cheers,

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm–

Believe it or not, but until your comment I had never heard of the 100 Mile Diet.  You are right.  Limiting your food to only that grown or produced within a 100 mile radius of where you live would cut down on a lot of bad stuff.

Thanks for the heads up.

MRE