Sustainable Saturday - Why Buy Local?

What is a localvore or locavore? (I've seen both spellings).

One definition is "a person dedicated to eating food grown and produced locally".

Question immediately arise, such as: "what is local"?  Is it 10 miles?  50 miles?  100 miles?"  And, should that food only be organic food?  What if small local farms practice organic farming practices but don't have the money required to obtain an official organic certification?

Still, more and more people are investigating this food option.

This can get a little difficult if you live in the middle of a large city or in an area with a short growing season.

Here in the Binghamton, New York area there is a store called the "Old Barn Hollow Market" and it is an interesting place, indeed.

Their aim is to buy from producers 50 miles or less from Binghamton, although they will go up to 100 miles.  We are fortunate to be in dairy, maple syrup and apple/blueberry country.  For items not growable here (such as citrus) they have a buying club.  We haven't participated in that yet.

Here are a couple of examples of our recent purchases.  Above, left to right, is a loaf of day old cheese bread, a container of maple syrup-sweetened yogurt (made with non-homogenized milk), a quart of non-homogenized skim milk (and it was sooooo good) and a dozen eggs.  Not shown is garlic.  At the time of that visit, in March, the store was also selling beets grown using a technique called "high tunnels (or tall tunnels)"

This week we returned and purchased more garlic, some non-homogenized half and half (which was fantastic) and a bag of baby bok choy (I am going to blog more about the bok choy next Saturday).  The garlic, alas, is the last of the garlic until the new crop comes in late this summer.

So, why does it matter if you buy from a "localvore" store?

1.  You are buying from your regional neighbors and that money will circulate back into the local economy.
2. The owner of the store knows what he or she is selling, and can talk to you intelligently about all the items in the store.  If they can't answer your questions, they will go online and research (like the Barn Hollow person did with the bok choy above).
3.  You will know exactly who is growing or producing each product.  Each item is proudly labeled, and a good store will provide the websites or addresses of each grower. 
4.  The producers WANT you to contact them. Imagine that!  They want to have a dialog with you, their customer.  They want to know what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, too, and if there is any product you would like to see them grow or produce.

5.  Although these items tend to be more expensive than store bought you can't assume they will be more expensive.  The garlic was quite reasonable, we felt, and a local supermarket was selling the same amount of baby bok choy for a dollar more - and the supermarket bok choy wasn't even local.  You have to shop carefully, but it can be worth the effort.
6.  This type store is a great alternative in areas where farmers markets do not operate daily.

Does your area have a localvore movement?