Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702520.html
Eat Locally, Ease Climate Change Globally

ANTHONY FLACCAVENTO, WASH POST -
Sunday, March 9, 2008; Page B08

My farm is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern 
Virginia. Like many others who have recently made the transition from tobacco 
to organic farming, we sell our produce through local and regional channels, 
including the farmers market in the nearby town of Abingdon, population 8,000.

Of late, a number of commentators have disparaged local food economies, based 
on two claims: First, that
shipping food long distances in fully loaded tractor-trailers is more 
efficient than local transactions; and, second, that consumers travel much 
further to buy local foods, creating more, not less carbon emissions. They're 
wrong.

A full tractor-trailer hauls about 32,000 pounds of produce. On average,
according to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa
State University, this food travels about 1,750 miles from farm to
market, in trucks that get about 5.5 miles per gallon. That's 320
gallons of fuel to transport 32,000 pounds, or about a gallon of fuel
for every 100 pounds of food.

My farm is an eight-mile round trip from the Abingdon farmers market.
Our '94 Toyota pickup gets 15 miles to the gallon, fully loaded, so my
trip to and from the market uses just over a half gallon of gas. We take
and sell an average of 1,600 pounds of fresh produce every Saturday
morning. This works out to 3,200 pounds of food for every gallon of fuel
expended. That's 32 times more efficient.

Of course, not every farmer lives four miles from his or her market. But
our local experience, along with studies carried out in Austin and
Toronto, indicate that most farmers stay within a 50-mile radius.
Assuming they carry about 1,000 pounds -- a third less than we do -- the
average local food transaction delivers 500 pounds of food per gallon of
fuel, five times more efficient than conventional transport. . .

Though the data are a bit sketchy, two points stand out. First, in spite
of the dramatic growth of Wal-Mart and other "one-stop shopping"
outlets, our shopping miles are steadily increasing. As author Stacy
Mitchell has pointed out, we Americans increased our travel -- just for
shopping -- by over 90 billion miles from 1990 to 2001. . .

Second, several studies indicate that consumers are not willing to
travel more than six to eight miles or 15 to 20 minutes by car to shop
at a local market, perhaps slightly more than what people will travel to
reach the big-box store. . .

When my wife and I get up at 5 on Saturday morning to start packing our
truck, a cup of strong coffee and a glass of orange juice make it a
little easier. So we're not dogmatic about local foods. But we also
know, first hand, that locally produced foods are increasingly abundant,
convenient and rewarding.