Why Buy Local?

Most produce found in grocery stores has spent days or even weeks in transportation across state and country lines, all the while losing essential nutrients, fluids, and flavor. Because foods grown or raised in our community for our community undergo significantly less transit time and often receive more attention than foods grown on a large scale, we can enjoy the benefits of fruits and vegetables that are grown in fertile soils and that are picked at their peak for optimal flavor, texture, and nutrient content.

Fresh produce loses nutrients quickly, and the longer time between harvest and consumption, the less your body will benefit. Purchasing local foods direct from farmers shortens the harvest-to-table gap dramatically to only a day or two, if not merely hours. Local farmers can also offer a much wider variety of fruits and vegetables that are grown with quality in mind instead of shipping and spoilage.

While commercial foods embark on lengthy excursions on average 1500-2500 miles involving fleets of trucks and large processing facilities, local food doesn’t have to travel far to find your table. Local family farms, often considerably smaller than commercial farms, also tend to rely less on agricultural equipment packaging, and storage, fueling their work with more passion and commitment than fossilized energy.

Most fruit and vegetable varieties sold in supermarkets are chosen for their strong skin that allows their ability to withstand industrial harvesting equipment, packing, and shipping, for their profitable yields, and for their success in surviving a prolonged shelf life. Few hybrid varieties of each fruit and vegetable can live up to these requirements; thus, plant diversity is slim-to-none. Family farms, on the other hand, are able to offer a large assortment of unique crops including many heirloom varieties unavailable from mass-produced food sources. In choosing heirloom varieties especially, local farmers can help to preserve genetic diversity by continuing the production of fruits and vegetables that have expressly selected for excellent flavor and passed down from generation to generation and that could possibly otherwise be lost forever to the mono-cropping mentality of large-scale agriculture.

By supporting local agriculture, we can take an active role in the conservation of our precious farmlands, which are all too often swallowed by new developments of urban sprawl. The more valuable fresh-farmed fruits and vegetables become, the less enticing it will be for landowners to trade out our last glimpses of backcountry character for concrete and cookie-cutter monotony.

In developing an awareness of where our foods come from and how they are grown, we are breathing fresh life into the diminishing connection between the eater and the grower, we are establishing a relationship centered around trust and understanding, the cornerstone of community development. Local foods are often presented in more community-oriented ways, such as farmers markets or CSAs, which allow for opportunities to visit with friends and neighbors, to connect with like-minded community members, and engage with local farmers and producers. Family farms often hold farm tours, allow farm visits, and hold volunteer workdays, furthering your connection to the seasons, the weather, the earth, and the dedication it takes to raise healthy plants and animals.

Buying from local farmers keeps wealth circulating in your community, preserves and creates meaningful jobs, and helps to ensure the continuation of a thriving local farming community. While large corporate-owned farms usher the majority of our food dollars far from our community, independent small farms offer competitive prices at much greater local monetary gain.

We define local as being within a hundred mile radius of the city of Santa Cruz, though most of the farmers and producers listed on our site are much closer, operating less than 35 miles from our packing location. Occasionally we list items grown in California that are outside our normal radius. On these items the miles to market will be specially noted.

For more information about buying locally, visit Think Local Santa Cruz, Local Harvest, and Buy Fresh Buy Local .