By eating locally and in-season, you don’t have to worry about whether the farm supplying your organic produce is depleting the water and soil in far-away places in ways that defy one of the founding principles of organic agriculture—sustainability.
Written by Rachel Cernansky
www.care2.com
January 4, 2012
The New York Times ran an important story about a growing shift in the organic agriculture industry away from sustainable practices. There are still no synthetic chemicals, but large farms growing organic crops often use monocrop agriculture, an inherently unsustainable practice that erodes soil quality, or use water resources so heavily that local aquifers become depleted.[snip]
What this Times story does is point back to the argument for getting to know the farms in your area and buying from them whenever possible. You eliminate the emissions associated with transporting food the long distances that imports have to travel; chances are good that if a farm (organic and local farms are best) sells at farmer’s markets and other small, local venues, it is using more sustainable practices than its large-scale counterpart; and when you buy locally, you’re just about forced to also buy in-season produce.
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