Going green is one of the hottest trends in Georgia these days. But one of the largest components of a green lifestyle is being overlooked.
People are now buying green SUVs, green homes, and clean water in carcinogenic-free types of plastic bottles. Governments and businesses are buying recycled copy paper, constructing green buildings, spending millions on green car fleets, and getting rid of styrofoam coffee cups in their kitchenettes.
But most, if not all, are buying food made in unsustainable ways from far off places. Georgia is caught up in concerning paradox. We produce plenty of food – the state is No. 1 for chicken production, and 6th for overall vegetable production.
Yet, of the $20 billion Georgians spend on food each year, $16 billion is going to out of state producers. Huge industrialized agricultural operations and global food distributions systems dominate the physical and political landscape of Georgia. 1,465 farms have disappeared in Georgia Since 2002.
The large-scale operations strain local economies, especially in rural Georgia, keeping state poverty rates near the nation’s lowest. And the poverty, in turn, perpetuates an unhealthy diet dependent on cheap, processed food.
We’re not talking about changing America’s food system overnight. And of course some people will always prefer McDonald’s over Whole Foods – that’s just the reality.
But we do know that there are a lot of people who like to know where there food came from, who believe in their community, and who want to protect their own bodies and the land from harmful chemicals.
The economic benefits of shopping locally are huge. We know that when you spend $100 at a typical chain grocery store, about $125 makes it into the local economy. When you spend $100 at a farmers’ market, $175 makes it into the local economy.
There are environmental reasons to eat from nearby farms, too.
In Georgia, agriculture is the number one source of run-off water pollution. Globally, agriculture accounts for 33 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Conventional agriculture relies on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, which are all made with fossil fuels. And the process to make them is also very energy intensive.
If every U.S. citizen ate one local meal a week, America’s oil consumption would be reduced by 1.1million barrels of oil per week.
It’d be great if everybody ate from a nearby farm. In fact, a strong contingent of urbanites are so into the good food movement that they beat farmers’ to the farmers markets.
But the harsh reality is that there is much more demand than supply. As a state, we are far behind our neighbors when it comes to the amount of land that’s farmed organically. Here, it’s less than 1 percent.
Consumers and chefs are just dying to get their hands on local and organic food. Increasing demand is our biggest hurdle now. The solution is that we must grow more growers, and convert those who farm in ways that are not sustainable.
The key is that we must move Georgia from a commodity-based system to a community-based system, and you do simply that by starting with the food on your plate.
