Buying Locally Produced Food

Why?  Local Economy  Environmental Sustainability  Health

Local Economy  When you buy local, the money stays local  An Andersonville Study of Retail Economics found that of every $100 spent at local businesses, $68 remains in the Chicago economy, while of every $100 spent at a chain, $43 remains in the Chicago economy. For every square foot occupied by a local firm, the local economic impact is $179. For every square foot occupied by a chain firm, local economic impact is $105.

Environmental Sustainability  The global food market has a large impact on the environment  Energy usage  Unrecyclable products  Decreasing biodiversity  Dangerous chemicals

 Energy Usage  The Institute of Science and Society reports that 17 percent of petroleum demand in the US goes towards industrial “mega-farms” for crop production and transportation, producing fertilizer and pesticides, and processing food to increase shelf life  Food transportation accounts for 20 percent of all commodity transport in the United States, resulting in 120 million tons of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions every year.  Many foods require constant refrigeration which requires extra energy.

 Unrecyclable products  As the time between harvest and shelving increases, larger amounts of paper and plastic packaging are needed to keep food fresh, which eventually becomes un-recyclable waste.  Decreasing biodiversity  global farms create giant monocultures, cultivating a single organism over a great area and reducing the biodiversity of the land. These monocultures can exhaust the soil’s nutrients.

 Dangerous chemicals  These huge farms require a massive input of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers that are dangerous to human and animal health, erode soil, chemically and ecologically alter waterways, deoxygenate large bodies of water, and poison the surrounding ecosystems

Health  Industrial farming techniques require little crop rotation, using specialized soil that contains only a few essential nutrients  Plants cannot synthesize minerals that are absent from the soil meaning that they contain an extremely limited nutrient pro fi le,  Excessive pesticide use reduces a plant’s ability to take in nutrients from the soil.  Food loses even more nutrients in premature harvest and processing, which is done to increase shelf life. After multiple- day transportation, the produce lacks vitamins and phytonutrients, a plant substance that provides protective health bene fi ts.

Where?  Farmers markets  Restaurants that use local products  rg/search.jsp rg/search.jsp  go.org/guaranteedgreenres taurants go.org/guaranteedgreenres taurants  hicago.com/ hicago.com/

References  ,00.html ,00.html  finance/articles/2011/10/28/how-consumers-and- communities-can-benefit-from-buying-local finance/articles/2011/10/28/how-consumers-and- communities-can-benefit-from-buying-local 