You might want to check out this website-- www.eatwild.com. It explains the importance of pasture raised meat and gives links to farms in most states that raise poultry, pork, beef, lamb in environmentally conscious and healthful ways and market directly to consumers.

Patronizing your local farmers' markets, roadside stands, etc. is sometimes the most you can do as an individual. The supermarket chains are going to rely on their usual suppliers regardless of how far flung across the globe they might be. I'm not on the corporate side, just realistic - because for one thing the volume required by supermarkets couldn't be met by some local hobby farmer.

Here, the supermarkets do carry a fair number of locally grown items - and they're labeled as such. In season there's corn, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, many varieties of apples, squashes, pumpkins, plus readily available cheeses, milk, wild rice. I know there are more things.

Obviously, many parts of the country can't produce certain items - citrus in Minnesota would prove global warming is real to even the most staunch doubter. And meat raised on the hoof locally is no doubt processed through Kansas or some other stockyard state. And your morning coffee and evening tea... well you get my drift. We will always have to rely on outside sources for many of the things that make our diets varied and interesting.

I've seen a big upswing in people patronizing farmers' markets - to the point where new ones have cropped up and found a loyal following. I'll hit several of them on Wednesdays or Saturdays usually from April until after the Christmas holidays - homemade breads, Cornish pasties, jams, jellies, pickles, chicken, eggs, veggies, cut flowers, plants, wreaths, greens, trees - it's all good and so much more fun than the supermarkets. Not always cheaper, but worth it to me.

I had to reply to this statement.
"And meat raised on the hoof locally is no doubt processed through Kansas or some other stockyard state"

Definitely not true. Small scale producers would not make any money if they sent their animals to the stockyards. Poultry producers often slaughter on farm. Producers of grass-fed beef of course don't send their animals to the stockyards (beef "finished" at stockyards are basically force-fed with grain, an unnatural food for ruminants).
There are plenty of local slaughterhouses/meatlockers where producers can take animals to be processed.

I buy locally-produced meat (and milk and cheese) at my food coop, where everything local is marked as such. The farmers market is also a good source for local foods, especially producer-only markets. You might have better luck putting your energy into developing/supporting a producer-only market than trying to convince big supermarket chains to change.

I agree with annebert. I get locally raised meat in two ways--directly from the producer who either slaughtered it themselves (poultry) or had it slaughtered at a local slaughterhouse. Or I get it from a small retail meat market associated with a local stockyard that purchases meat from local growers and tries to limit purchases to growers they know don't use steroids or hormones. A small slaughterhouse is operated there as well.

Buying locally, in addition to keeping the food supply regionalized (the more centralized, the more vulnerable to a whole host of dangers--diseases, terrorism, etc), keeps local farmers in business and encourages healthier food and better farming practices.

I had to laugh at you folks. Here in Florida you want local, but this state only can grow some things. We have a farmers market yet in the middle of the winter they are selling fresh pineapples. In Florida they become rip in June or July not in the winter months. Most come from South America at that tme. In the spring you can get tomatoes, squash, egg plants, most melons, and other things cause we have 2 growing seasons, but fresh fruit besides citrus don't become picked till later in the spring. Strawberries is a early jan-Apr fruit. bananas are ripe in the fall, but most come from the docks in Tampa FL You should know your fruit, veggie seasons for florida or you part of town and ask the vendors where the stuff came from.

That's a good point. A lot of it has to do with the integrity of the market. Our local market limits the amount of produce one can buy from out of the locality for resale. Not so many years ago, every "housewife" knew what fruits and vegetables were in season and what were not, and the bulk of the meals served at any given point on the calendar followed this pattern. That was back in those days when imported foods were paid for with premium prices.

What goes on my table in December is very different than what goes on my table in August and I still associate some items as "winter" or "summer" food. IOW more slaws than salads, more apples than strawberries, in winter. We don't feel particularly deprived, we sort of celebrate including some things when they come in season locally and our appetites aren't jaded because we have access to things like corn on the cob or fresh berries any day of the year.

having foods come in from different parts of the world inhances my eating experiences. I can't imagine not having coffee or tea or chocolate. I'm not going to give up the pleasure of tasting various citrus or bananas. How would my martini be without that olive? Eating local has limits. Tom

I agree with you, skagit - being able to buy local is dependent on what can be grown and supplied. I feel the same way about the maraschino cherry in my Brandy Manhattan, but, like everything else, they're supplied from somebody's "local" area. Without having access to imports from around the globe (or parts of the country other than your own), there would be little pleasure to give up.

There are legitimate imports, of course. There is a legitimate reason you buy imported coffee, or tea...but one trip down your supermarket isles also should tell you that the shelves are loaded with produce and foods we can and should be producing under our own noses. For example Chinese grown garlic. I can't think of too many states in America where garlic can't be produced. Why?

Buying things from a distance we can produce in our own counties to save what amounts to a few cents for the end user is what brought down the small farms. We got cheaper food alright, and the environmental mess with how to deal with a thousand acre hog farm, where the manure generated can't be handled in a natural way by the normal cycles. It also meant the increase in petrochemicals, loss of genetic diversity, and the risks involved in monoculture plantings.

Buying locally doesn't mean you have to give up things you cannot get locally, it simply implies making an effort to support and encourage production of those foods you can, before the independent farms and farmland go under for other uses and we lose forever the ability to feed ourselves.

For every increase in imports of things we can grow ourselves, a developing country will turn more rain forest, or natural land into a mega-farm with the same issues we have created for ourselves and won't face. When it was just sugar cane, or olives, or tea that was bad enough to rip up forests and unspoilt land. With those countries becoming the breadbaskets of the world, however, as the superpowers turn to them to get their food cheaper, in the long run it isn't a pretty picture.

This is one of those things where you could drive yourself crazy. Is it better to buy the organic grapes from Chile, or the non-organic ones grown one state over?

I think everybody should grow a little of their own food. As calliope points out, pretty much everyone can grow garlic or onions or carrots, say.

Recently I read Eric Carle's "Pancakes, Pancakes" to my kids. In this book the boy wants pancakes, so his mother makes him cut the wheat, thresh it, mill it, milk the cow, get the eggs, etc. It really made me think about what is required to make a very simple meal.

So I think if we all did a tiny bit of farming of our own, it would make us appreciate our food more--what it takes to grow it, what we're asking of our food suppliers, what we can grow in our own climate, and so forth. Myself, I want to understand why heat-loving tomatoes thrive in my yard on the foggy Northern California coast, while cool-season broccoli bolts in the middle of the winter.

Chinese-grown garlic - that's a stunner. We've found it in our local grocery store too. The same store won't take our organic produce, including garlic, to sell because of safety/health issues - the manager was vague, the conversation turned awkward and I didn't press him. The bigger, farther-away local grocery store, part of a fairly big chain which has a big advertising campaign boasting support of local produce, won't take ours either; 'local' apparently means big farms in the same province. On another occasion the manager said that if they took our produce they'd have to say yes to every tom dick and harry with a garden who has asked them to carry their potatoes. I don't mind too much; we keep busy enough selling straight from our gardens to local people and tourists who hear about us through word of mouth. It's the principle of it that makes me want to write challenging letters to store headquarters.

We live on the northernmost part of an island. Sometimes I think the only thing that will knock sense into people is an earthquake that would cause our region to break off from the rest of the island, preventing food trucks from reaching us. But before that happens, soaring gas prices are sure to help.

www.localharvest.org is a great resource for tracking down resources in your area, be they farm markets, 'little guy' producers, or what i was most excited to discover, CSAs (community supported agriculture), wherein you the consumer pay the farmer in advance to provide you locally grown produce throughout the growing season.

there are some limits to 'local,' though, it seems. i was less than thrilled to find that my local organic farm has onion sets shipped from arizona, for example, but arizona is at least closer than chile. and it is a way to get produce earlier than august. but it is certified organic and it is quite local and it does support actual family farms

Here is a link that might be useful: Local Harvest

Can anyone offer me some input on CSAs? We are eating vegetarian, and I *think* I might like to do this, but I don't know if it's right for us. Cost is definitely a factor, unfortunately.

From the above link, there is a farm nearby. There isn't too much info available as to their program, but it seems to be $370 for 4-8 lbs of veggies/week from March-Dec, if I agree to work some at the farm, which I would love. If I assume an average of 6 lbs a week, that works out to somewhere around $1.75/lb of veggies. I can buy a lot of veggies for well less than that, albeit they're not going to be local and possibly organic.

How do I evaluate if this is a good program for us??

aok, You could check and see if they offer vegies that provide the protein you need in your vegetarian diet. The easiest way to see if it works for you is to sign up for a year. Even if it doesn't work out you'll meets some nice folks and learn a lot about food. Tom