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  • From: mtncats <mtncats@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] New Campaign to Boost Local Production
  • Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:47:56 -0800 (PST)

>From our local paper:

“I grow just about every vegetable except for corn,” said Meyers, who bought the 6.25-acre farm with her husband three years ago.
Increasingly, Meyers has observed, Charlottesville-area gastronomes are choosing to shun traditional grocery stores in favor of locally produced food for their family’s dinner plates.
“There’s definitely a growing number of people who are trying to eat local,” she said. “They realize the food tastes fresher, they’re supporting local farmers and they can get to know the person who grew what they’re eating.”
New Branch is one of scores of Central Virginia farms, restaurants, farmers markets, caterers and grocery stores that will be featured in a forthcoming guide to the Charlottesville region’s local food economy.
The “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” guide will be mailed to every home in Charlottesville and Albemarle County at the end of April. It will also be available at spots throughout the city and Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson and Louisa counties.
The guide is intended to help consumers locate and buy fresh vegetables, fruit, wine, cheese and meat from Central Virginia farms.
“We want to make it easy for people to find and buy local food,” said Melissa Wiley, a development specialist with the Piedmont Environmental Council. “It’s out there, but it’s just not very visible. And, very simply, we want to raise awareness about the benefits of local food.”
In addition to the regional food guide, the Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign will include bumper stickers and labels for locally grown food. A kickoff event will be held May 4 at the downtown Pavilion.
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Conventionally produced food travels an average of 1,500 to 2,500 miles from field to plate. Along the route, fossil fuels are consumed, carbon dioxide is emitted and packaging materials are required.
Buying local food on the other hand is better for the environment, Wiley said. It also helps stymie the loss of farmland by supporting agricultural economic development. In Albemarle alone, she said, 95,000 acres of rural farmland have been lost to development since 1979.
Because local produce does not have to travel far, it can be picked at the height of its flavor and kept free of preservatives.
“It tastes better, it’s fresher,” said Jennifer Burgos, buyer at Fabulous Foods in Crozet, a 1,500-square-foot grocery store that offers local apples, lettuce, blueberries, blackberries, chestnuts, peaches, bok-choy, herbs and more. “Our motto is sustaining small farms, nourishing our families.”
Local food may also be healthier and safer than conventional food, said Tanya Denckla Cobb, a senior associate at the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia.
“Fresh foods don’t have to be hybrids, like some conventional tomatoes, which have fewer nutrients like vitamin A and vitamin C,” she said.
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The nonprofit Piedmont Environmental Council and the Institute for Environmental Negotiation are co-sponsoring the Buy Fresh, Buy Local effort.
An anonymous donor gave PEC a $15,000 grant a year-and-a-half ago to produce the guide in an attempt to strengthen the region’s rural economy and preserve existing farmland.
Meanwhile, Denckla Cobb and UVa professor Timothy Beatley were teaching a class called “Planning for a Sustainable and Secure Community Food System.”
Upon the class’ completion last spring, the students formed Everyone At the Table Local, a group seeking to “enhance the sustainability of the greater Charlottesville area’s regional “foodshed.” EAT Local received its own $5,000 anonymous donation and began researching local farms to produce a regional food guide.
Last year, the two local food guide projects converged and the Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign got under way.
“We decided to join forces,” Denckla Cobb said. “With this local food guide, we can connect people with local farmers. It’ll let you eat local if you want to.”
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Gryffon’s Aerie, a Louisa County farm that features heritage breeds of grass-fed cattle and livestock, is another local farm that will be featured in the Buy Fresh, Buy Local guide.
Ramona Huff, whose family owns the farm, said recent outbreaks of food borne diseases - such as the recent recall of two peanut butter brands that were tainted with salmonella - are prompting more people to seek out local farmers they can trust.
“People are starting to get it,” she said. “There’s been a real groundswell of people getting to know their local farmers and getting their food locally. People are disenchanted with the industrial food machine. People have lost trust with the big corporations.”
The Buy Fresh, Buy Local guide will also feature a number of “community supported agriculture” businesses. A CSA, such as the Best of What’s Around outside Scottsville, is a subscriber-based system in which customers pay a farmer at the beginning of the growing season for weekly baskets of local produce.
“It’s a way for farmers to survive on farming full-time, rather than as a part-time job,” said Matthew Holt, farm manager of the Best of What’s Around. “People join for different reasons - some just want dynamite food for cheap prices, others want to support local farmers. Whatever the reason, they’re supporting farms and helping them stick around.”
The upcoming local food guide could help boost the number of subscribers for Central Virginia CSAs, Holt said.
It is possible, but difficult, to live on a diet consisting solely of foods produced within 100 miles of Charlottesville, Denckla Cobb said.
“It would be a challenge, but it could very well be done,” she said. “You could have a decent diet, though it’d be tough to get all the calories you need. You’d certainly be doing well with apples, berries and potatoes.”
The Buy Fresh, Buy Local guide, she said, will at least serve as a blueprint for Charlottesville-area consumers to take the first step toward more sustainable eating habits.
One complaint about locally produced food is that it can cost a bit more than conventional food.
“It can be more expensive, but studies have shown that 70 percent of Americans are willing to pay more for local produce,” Wiley said. “They want quality, freshness, taste and a wider variety of choice than they get in the grocery stores.”
 
Tom (near Charlottesville, Va)



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  • [Livingontheland] New Campaign to Boost Local Production, mtncats, 02/28/2007

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