Shop for fresh and local produce at least once a month at the farmer’s market. Bring a friend and bring your kids.

What’s In It For the Planet?

  • What are “food miles”? The distance our food travels from production to consumption as well as the environmental impact of getting it there.
  • Most food travels an average of 1,300 miles from field to plate. Consuming locally grown food vastly reduces
    this mileage.
  • For example, every year nearly 270 million pounds of grapes are shipped from Chile to Los Angeles. The 5,900mile journey releases 7,000 tons of global warming pollution into the air. (NRDC).
  • Farmers markets offer hundreds of varieties of fruits and vegetables, whereas industrial agribusiness cultivates high-yield hybrid crops for fast maturation and thick skins to withstand mechanical harvest and transport.
  • Locally grown produce is fresher and healthier than food purchased from a supermarket or big-box store.
  • Eating local food supports a local economy, connects us to the seasons, tastes better and supports food heritage.
  • A “locavore” is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100,
    or 150 miles.

What’s In It For Me?

What’s not to celebrate about the farmers market? It’s fun and colorful. Sometimes even musical. Your kids will love it. Did we mention it smells good?

And the variety! Most farmers markets offer everything from seasonal produce to jams, honey, flowers, olive oil, and fresh bread. It’s “where the agrarian community relates to the urban community” states the California Federation of Certified Farmers’ Markets. And the food simply tastes better. Compare the taste and texture of a ripe, heirloom tomato to a supermarket version, and you’ll know what
we mean.

And while you may have heard recent mutterings about high prices, we’re here to remind you that farmers started gathering long ago to offer consumers a deal on farm-fresh fruits and vegetables. By selling directly to you, many farmers will price their goods lower so you can find a
great deal.

Have you thought about signing up for a weekly or bi-monthly produce box from a local farm? According to LocalHarvest.org, “a CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce.” And it doesn’t stop there. Many regions now offer meat-buying collectives – like the Bay Area Meat CSA - so you and a neighbor can buy meat directly from ranchers. These groups often provide do-it-yourself butchering workshops so you can really take the process into your
own hands.

Already a locavore? Share your story with others who are also taking steps to live greener today.

Finding the Sacred In…Supporting Your Farmers

My own love affair with the farmers market started about ten years ago while living in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood. Saturday mornings I would wake early, listen to some old gospel music, drink Earl Gray tea with milk and honey, and prepare for the hilly journey from my apartment to the farmers market. It was because of this ambling ritual that I also developed a fondness for
San Francisco’s urban stairs.

Back then the Saturday market was still a small gathering of farmers. A sweet bluegrass band played if we were lucky. I discovered new delights like green garlic, fresh shelling peas, and celery root and often took home hearty Sweet Williams from a Sebastopol farm. Sometimes I brought along a camera to photograph the glorious colors on display - such extraordinary dahlias, radishes, avocados, and rainbow chard! I wasn’t quite sure why I loved the farmers market, but inside me – somewhere deep -
I felt soothed.

Ten years later I’m still crazy for the farmers market. I return each week to reconnect with the seasons – sometimes difficult as a San Franciscan – and to experience vibrancy and color. From my favorite Central Coast farmer I’ve learned the trick to opening a kiwi. And because there’s nothing quite like cooking with local and seasonal food, I’m happy to report that, at last, my culinary skills
have improved.
- Moira, San Francisco

Wanna Learn More?

Are we really turning into corn? Watch the film King Corn to find out.

Learn more about genetically-modified food in
The World According to Monsanto

Check out Michael Abelman’s beautiful food photography

Make art with the Future Farmers art collective

Read An Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan

Be part of the Eat Local Challenge

Attend the EcoFarm conference

If you live in the Bay Area, enlist My Farm SF to help you start your own backyard vegetable garden

Visit a community garden or the
California Academy of Sciences

Read Wendy Johnson’s book about
gardening and meditation

Visit an organic garden like Green Gulch

Become a guerilla gardener or a locavore

Organize an Eat-In

 

“It’s a huge pleasure to know the people who grow your food, to meet them at a farmer’s market and buy from them. Community is about connecting with people in a regular way. You are supporting them with your purchases, and they are enriching your life with delicious food.” - from a conversation between Deborah Koons Garcia and Alice Waters. Read the full article here.

 

This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- William Carlos Williams

 

Wanna Do More?

  • Plant herbs in a window box or start your own backyard vegetable garden.
  • Shop at the farmers market once a week or commit to buying all your produce from local sources (some local grocery stores will carry them).
  • Compost all used organic kitchen scraps.
  • Join a local CSA and receive a regular delivery of fresh and local produce.
  • Join a meat CSA and learn to butcher your own meat.
  • Host monthly “farm to table” dinners with your neighbors where all elements of the meal come directly from
    local farms.

Have some suggestions of your own? Share them on HabitChat.