Resources for Buying Locally Grown Food

Local food travels a much shorter distance from the farm to your table. Because local food is fresher, you get more flavorful food that hasn’t been nutrient depleted by age. If great tasting food isn’t enough incentive, your food’s quick trip to market also cuts down on transportation-based pollution and excessive food packaging. Buying local supports our local economy, preserves local agricultural land and protects the health of our environment.

Here are some tips and resources to help you get started once you've decided to go local.

Know where your food comes from and how it’s produced.

Ask your grocer about who supplies the food, where it is grown and how it’s raised. Get educated on food production techniques. Don’t just look for organically grown food, because some is not grown in the United States or certified. Also, some foods that are not marked organic could actually be uncertified organic, because it can be expensive for small farms to become certified organic. If you don’t see the quality of food you want, ask your grocer to stock organic, locally-grown foods. Your requests and money speak to businesses and farms.

LocalHarvest.org is a national website with links to family farms, farmers markets and other sources of sustainably grown food. It includes many of the food sources in the Portland area and maps the location of these food sources.

Shop at a farmer’s market.

Going to a farmer’s market is an opportunity to get food savvy quickly, because you can chat with the people who grow your food. You can also get some fresh, local produce in the process. Check OEC's list of Portland-area farmer's markets here.

More information about Oregon farmer’s markets can be found at: www.oregonfarmersmarkets.org

Subscribe to Community Supported Agriculture farms (CSA). Anyone can join a CSA. Subscribers to CSAs pay upfront for a share of the produce harvested from that farm. Paying into a CSA does partially expose subscribers to the financial risks inherent in farming, but also rewards them with fresh, seasonally-harvested produce, which is usually distributed on a weekly basis. In addition to getting fresh produce, subscribing to a CSA invests in the local economy and maximizes the farmer’s profits. The relationship between local farmers and customer also fosters responsible land use and food production. (See the "local harvest" link in Resources, below.)

If making the switch to all local purchasing seems daunting, you might consider trying to go local for a period of time, or making one or two meals a week (or month) from local goods. Having the support of friends or family can also help. One approach is to join one of several versions of an "eat local challenge." Several options are listed below in the resources section.

Looking for a little more inspiration? We've also listed several great books and other materials that might inspire you. Enjoy!

Resources

• OEC's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture
• OEC's Guide to Portland-area farmer's markets
  
• Portland Area CSA Coalition. This local coalition provides contact information for its members.
  
• Alternative Farming Systems Information Center: this national database allows you to find CSA farms located by zip code or state.
  
• LocalHarvest: this national database maps CSA farms in your area and provides contact information.
• Farmers' Markets
• Organic U-Picks and Community-Supported Farmers
• Natural Foods Grocers and Restaurants
• Salmon-Safe Wine
• Safe Fish Consumption "Calculator"
• Recent New York Times article on eating locally: "Preserving Fossil Fuels and Nearby Farmland By Eating Locally," April 25, 2007
• www.eatlocalchallenge.com
  www.100milediet.org
• Plenty, by Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon, Crown Publisher, 2007
• Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets, by Deborah Madison, Broadway Books, 2002
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Collins, 2007
• Coming Home to Eat: The Sensual Pleasures and Global Politics of Local Foods, by Gary Paul Nabham, W.W. Norton and Co., 2001