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market-farming - Re: Local & Fresh & Promotions

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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: Lucy Goodman-Owsley <goodows AT excite.com>
  • To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Local & Fresh & Promotions
  • Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 04:22:40 -0700 (PDT)



On Mon, 15 May 2000 21:13:41 -0400, market farming wrote:

> On Mon, 15 May 2000 14:52:00 -0500, "Dave Bennett"
> <dbennett AT micoks.net> wrote:
>
> >I think the taste & nutritional superiority of freshly harvested produce
is the biggest + a market farmer has.
>
> Right.
>
> >Local is unimportant.
>
> Local and what's-in-season is all important if you value the small
> farmers in your locale. Why buy Calif/Fla/Texas/Mex when you can buy
> locally, as long as all other factors are equal.
>
I agree with Lawerence 1,000,000% here. As a CSA grower I have found about
95% of my CSA members take the local thing very, very seriously. As a
Farmer's market grower I have found a far fewer customers care about it
being local until I explain why buying local is important. After the short
explaination most go away with heirloom tomatoes and open eyes. Even so I
would say 65% of my regular farmer's market customers do indeed care about
the food being locally grown. Some will never care also and are at the
market looking for the cheapest price-I don't want those folks as customers.

Personally I try to buy local whenever I can. No one around here carries
many of the farming supplies I need (this is the miswest, land of mechanized
chemical farming country) So I must go elsewhere for row cover though I do
get all my chicken feed and inputs such as kelp from local organic farmers
at higher cost. I use the local grain elevator when I can and they have
gotten a lot more organic inputs in the past few years. I usually use the
local hardware store over Wal-Mart even though the prices are higher and the
little bit of grocery shopping I do I either do at the local, not for profit
co-op (of which I am a member and also sell produce to the too) or the
locally owned IGA.

I'll bet there are others on this list that do these things too. By buying
locally i set an example to my customers and show them it is possible to do
this.

Fresh is important, gourmet quality is important but none of that matters if
supporting local buisinesses isn't.


Lucy Goodman-Owsley
Boulder Belt CSA
New Paris, OH
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/boulderbeltcsa
Organic Farming and Gardening Forum:
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb135705
Want Social Change? Join a CSA!





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