Is local food more RIPE? – YES
Different than fresh, ripe is about eating food at the perfect moment of its development and that is certainly done best on a local level, from your own backyard when possible.

Does eating locally improve the LOCAL ECONOMY? – YES AND NO
It is true that if we spend our money buying locally produced goods, that money mostly stays in the community. It is also true that if every community does that, our community will lose the dollars those companies bring here from their sales to other locales. Eugene has a number of great natural foods businesses that depend upon regional, national and international markets for their goods. Many of the Northwest’s organic growers are in the same boat. The complete success of buy local campaigns will undo all of them.

There are many products that come here from other places that are superior to what is produced here. In many cases, I support the best vendor, wherever they may be located and figure that the money I provide them will help to develop the community they work in, which in the end is probably as worthy of support as my own.

Does local food travel fewer FOOD MILES? – UM…
This is an issue that has been greatly oversimplified. It does not take into consideration questions including: What was the mode of transportation? What was the alternative to bringing food from that distance? Is it the difference between petrol in a distribution vehicle and petrol in piles of greenhouse plastic making their way into our landfills? Is it the difference between petrol in a distribution vehicle and long-term storage of locally produced crops held in cold storage? Is it the difference between large fuel efficient vehicles and numerous less efficient small vehicles visiting the same stops?

Does eating locally protect FARMLAND AND ITS VALUES TO COMMUNITIES? – YES
Community members that are aware of and buying from local farms offer the best opportunity to maintain successful local farming efforts and all they can offer us in food, recreation, habitat preservation, beauty and more.

Does eating locally enhance consumer RELATIONSHIPS WITH PRODUCERS? – YES
When it comes to local growers, you can stand next to them and sometimes even stand with them in their fields. You can share with them the pleasure you get from eating the food they produce, and they can explain to you what a joy and what a pain in the ass it was producing that food. Very few of us will be farmers, but because of local direct marketing, all of us can know them and something about the work they do.

Does eating locally mean eating with the SEASON? – YES
To eat local is to have the curtain pulled aside and to realize that in the world of food, things come and go. There is a time for tomatoes and a time for parsnips, a time for lettuce and a time for cabbage, and a purpose to the rotations of the heavenly bodies that allows farmers to rest for a few weeks while studying their seed catalogs in the dead of winter.

In the upper Willamette Valley, we are nearing that off season now.

May the season, the soil and the sea bless each of you.

Thank you.