Eating Local Organic Reduces Global Warming
Written by PlanetSave
Thursday, 24 August 2006

First lets define organic. An article at PlanetSave.com by the Associated Press states that: Food or textiles certified ``organic'' by the U.S. Department of Agriculture must meet this definition:

``Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.''

I would add to that definition. I would like to add the word local. Grown by your local farms. Why? Because buying local organic makes a much greater impact in the reduction of greenhouse gasses and global warming and is better for your local economy.

Burning one gallon of gas releases five pounds of carbon into our atmosphere. So how much carbon is released into the atmosphere when you go to the local grocer in North East, USA and buy tomatoes that are organic yet come from the Netherlands? The answer is too much.

What can we do? First of all we can eat locally. We can buy from farmers markets. Farmers markets have been popping up everywhere and you get fresher, tastier food.

Local organic shopping is not always convenient and I don’t think that it is all up to the consumer to make eating locally become a reality. However, it would be hard to make the big markets change with out the consumer acting first. Hopefully the large supermarkets that sell organic will start selling local organic. Wal-Mart sells organic but I doubt it is local. I don’t shop there so I can’t be 100% sure.

When you buy organic, make sure you are not buying from a company that is simply “Green Washing”.

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from Cafegurl17,
in the case that you would like to find the organic farmer near you go to localharvest.org it's a great search engine, i found three near my home.
"this will also be a link in the links section for later reference!"
Also some of the places at localharvest sell wool for extremely cheap prices, if you like to knit, crochet etc. buy it there and you know that you've saved alot of co2 by not buying it at the store.