Released July 18, 2008
AUBURN UNIVERSITY, Ala. – Not too long ago, large grocery chains eschewed locally grown produce, opting to ship in fruits and vegetables from across the country as well as importing it from foreign countries. These days, it seems, some chains are listening to their customers who are more and more interested in locally grown produce.
Gary Gray, a regional commercial horticulture agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, says he has been contacted by two grocery store chains recently.
“Both wanted to establish contacts with local growers,” says Gray. “That’s good news for both growers and consumers.”
Gray says growers will benefit by having more markets for their products.
“Consumers will have the opportunity to buy fresher produce,” he says. “It means vegetables and fruits may only be hours or days from the farm instead of having been picked a week ago and then shipped. Consumers prefer freshly picked vine-ripened tomatoes or tree-ripened peaches over produce picked greener for shipping.”
“The growing interest in eating locally produced foods, whether it be produce, eggs, meat or dairy products, is probably also linked to some degree to consumers’ concerns about food safety,” says Gray.
He believes that consumers are interested in knowing more about where and how their food is produced. But these interests are really just two elements in a growing local food movement.
Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, offers this about the movement in its Local Food entry, “Local food or the local food movement is a ‘collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular place’ and is considered to be a part of the broader sustainability movement. It is part of the concept of local purchasing and local economies, a preference to buy locally produced goods and services.”
No matter the reasons for the expanding interest in locally grown foods, Gray says it is good for local farmers and consumers.
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http://www.aces.edu/department/extcomm/npa/daily/archives/003690.php
