Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Local food 'greener than organic'

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Pat Meadows <pat@meadows.pair.com>
  • To: "self-reliance, networking, and simple living, for small farm sustainability, rural independence and security." <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Local food 'greener than organic'
  • Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:55:51 -0500

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:52:34 -0700, you wrote:

>
>
>Local food 'greener than organic'
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4312591.stm
>
>Food should come from within your area, the report says. Local food is
>usually more "green" than organic food, according to a report published in
>the journal Food Policy.
>
>The authors say organic farming is also valuable, but people can help the
>environment even more by buying food from within a 20km (12-mile) radius.
>

Interesting article. I've also always thought that local
trumps organic, by the way.

I've read this particular article before, and I think the
radius *may* be OK for the (much smaller area of) the UK.
(Even so, I think it's awfully optimistic.)

I definitely think it's too small a radius for many areas of
the USA. Even as something to aim for, a goal, I think it's
too small a radius to be realistic for the USA. Goals need
to have some relationship to reality, or people get too
discouraged and give up.

If we drew a circle with a 12 mile radius around where I
live in northern Pennsylvania, for instance (and temporarily
forgetting our own garden), we could buy:

* maple syrup
* blueberries
* rhubarb
* eggs
* sweet corn for about two weeks in summer only
* goat cheese
* milk
* grass-fed beef
* some fresh veggies at a farmer's market from June 1 to
around October 1 only
* field corn that could be ground into cornmeal
* soybeans
* potatoes

And that's about all. (Nevertheless, we could definitely
live on those foods if we really had to, and if we could
preserve the veggies for winter in some manner - freezing,
canning, or drying.)

With the present state of the US food distribution system, I
think that it's more reasonable for people to aim for buying
food from a larger local area. Maybe within your state of
residence, or from within a 50 mile radius.

If we had a 50 mile radius as our aim (in this particular
area), we could buy a reasonably balanced diet.

Pat
--
ContainerSeeds.com - vegetable, herb, fruit, and edible
flower seeds for successful container growing.
http://www.containerseeds.com




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page