Ohio Food Nourished Economic Menu

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Buying 25% of your groceries from local farmers for a year lowers your carbon footprint by 225 pounds, even more than recycling glass, plastic and cans! (Eating Well Magazine, February 2009) Katherine M. Harrison, producer, goat herder, butcherer, Jeni Britton Bauer, founder, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Bill Dawson, Program Coordinator, Growing to Green, Franklin Park Conservatory, moderated by Katharine Moore, Executive Director of Dine Originals Columbus. Locavore is a new word describing local eating, which has been adopted by cutting edge social movements. It's a new word, but not a new concept. It's the way most people ate, until just the past few generations. Our great grandmothers, grandmothers and maybe our mothers raised gardens, bought eggs and milk from local farmers, and groceries carried produce available from a day's truck ride away. How things have changed in just a couple generations. Now, it would be ludicrous to think we couldn't buy a fresh orange, leaf lettuce or fresh seedless grapes during the middle of an Ohio winter, or find fresh milk 24/7 at any corner convenience store! We haven't really thought about anything otherwise, until just recently when organic and locally-grown, farmers markets, $4.00-gallon gasoline, carbon footprint have become trendy and perceived as being healthier for our families and for the environment. The Locavore trend is rising for a number of reasons. First, studies indicate that many consumers perceive food purchased fresh at farmers markets is higher quality than produce purchased at a super market. Second is the impact to the environment from the use of chemicals in large-scale farming, the extensive use of gasoline to truck produce across thousands of miles. Additionally, we look at the economic impact of locally consumed produce to the local, regional and state economy. Ohio's largest industry is agriculture, but the vast majority of Ohio-produced food is not consumed in Ohio. Why not? Don't we care about eating food grown by our neighboring farmers? Don't they have a local market for what they produce? Are there other obstacles that interfere with the farmer to consumer pipeline? Is it pricing, marketing, distribution, food safety or societal issues that create this situation?

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