I think my subject line is a quote, but I'm not sure. Onwards.
Neither of these options is necessarily "good for the environment." Organic crops often require more energy to produce, so while we are spared the nasty chemicals in the runoff, we're burdened with additional fossil fuel use.
Say what? I had thought that "organic" impliedmeant the food was grown with, you know, organic fertilizers - ie, not hydrocarbons extracted from rocks. I'd better check the Canadian standards - if there are any.
I do have a very hard time believing that, here in Southern Ontario at least, our local farming and transportation industry is so inefficient that getting a bag of carrots from the Holland Marsh 30 miles from my apartment burns more fossil fuel than getting a similar bag shipped up from ... well, elsewhere, far away.
Even if so, by buying locally I can at least hope my dollars helping to build a more sustainable local farming community.
Leaving fossil fuels and global warming aside, there are other reasons to buy local. Among them (at least in my area) are:
In-season produce just tastes better;
buying locally encourages farmers to keep farming, rather than selling more of Southern Ontario's apparently very rich agricultural soil to developers who will just pave it over for more suburban sprawl;
buying locally provides local employment and keeps green space green, thus improving the local pollution levels; and
from a pragmatic nationalist perspective, it simply doesn't make sense to depend on foreign food supplies.
But I certainly do take your point about interrogating choices. And its off to Google with me.
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dancing_serpent
Perfection Is Often the Enemy of the Good
Date: 2008-03-31 10:38 pm (UTC)Neither of these options is necessarily "good for the environment." Organic crops often require more energy to produce, so while we are spared the nasty chemicals in the runoff, we're burdened with additional fossil fuel use.
Say what? I had thought that "organic"
impliedmeant the food was grown with, you know, organic fertilizers - ie, not hydrocarbons extracted from rocks. I'd better check the Canadian standards - if there are any.I do have a very hard time believing that, here in Southern Ontario at least, our local farming and transportation industry is so inefficient that getting a bag of carrots from the Holland Marsh 30 miles from my apartment burns more fossil fuel than getting a similar bag shipped up from ... well, elsewhere, far away.
Even if so, by buying locally I can at least hope my dollars helping to build a more sustainable local farming community.
Leaving fossil fuels and global warming aside, there are other reasons to buy local. Among them (at least in my area) are:
But I certainly do take your point about interrogating choices. And its off to Google with me.