[mommy22]

In my interest in thinking about going as local as possible when I make food purchases (and I, as a suburbanite buy most of my food) I came across this excellent website, and I think it is just for America (sorry anyone else).
www.localharvest.org
It has so many options to help you know what is in your area, and what you may be able to rely on PPO. I had no idea there were this many organic farmers near me, and throughout the country! These are the farmers who really deserve our support, and if we all try to purchase a percentage of our food from them, they can stay in business, and continue to be a source of knowledge for all of us.

[gego]

I am in the midwest.

I have difficulty buying locally grown bananas and citrus fruit. In the winter I cannot buy locally grown vegetables. There is locally raised meat year round. During the appropriate season I do buy locally raised food because it is available.

I really think the idea of buying local is in the same category as becoming independent of foreign oil. It is an impossibility; in any event, the price structure more or less insures that what is grown here stays here since it does not carry a high transportation charge.

[mommy22]

Yes, I'm in the midwest, too...no chance for bananas and citrus (unless your dwarf trees are doing better than mine!). But I find at our local health food store, they do have locally grown cold weather veg, like leeks and broccoli and beets and so forth. But that's only at that one store. Hmmm...maybe I should go and request more local options from the regular grocery store. I used to bug him every time I went in about having organic produce, and now there's a huge selection... if we all start asking the produce manager at our local stores that we want a bigger selection of local produce, maybe that would have an impact and we'd see more on the shelf.

[LadyRuby]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'I') am in the midwest.

I have difficulty buying locally grown bananas and citrus fruit. In the winter I cannot buy locally grown vegetables. There is locally raised meat year round. During the appropriate season I do buy locally raised food because it is available.

I really think the idea of buying local is in the same category as becoming independent of foreign oil. It is an impossibility; in any event, the price structure more or less insures that what is grown here stays here since it does not carry a high transportation charge.

[bulletproof]

Everyone who is looking at the effects of peak oil and the after-the-crash economy should look at food production. The production of food, ala the model of people like Joel Saladin and Booker Whatley, is an excellent business to get started with now to position yourself for the coming changes to the economy.

If one uses the model of a Pick Your Own operation, it can be started slowly and turned into a nice business that's almost immediately profitable. I knew one woman where we used to live in Kentucky (a school teacher) who planted an acre of strawberries and regularly made about $5000 each year while on summer break. She branched out into blueberries, grapes and asparagus, and if she wanted to she could quit teaching and still make a decent living. She continues to teach for the health care benefits and pension plan.

I know a few professional market gardeners, and while it's good money... it's also a full-time business. The most difficult part is to develop customer relationships. If located within walking distance or a short drive from a small town, the market is made. It only takes a few hundred regular customers to make a decent living, depending on what you're growing/raising.

Saladin advocates pastured poultry and rabbits (eggs and meat) and I know others who make a decent living selling raw milk directly to the customer. For the milk thing, a creative legal arrangement has to be implemented- usually selling the customer an equitable interest in the cow and then charging the customer a maintenance and management fee that's tied to the milk. Each gallon of milk will have a maintenance charge of maybe $2.00 per gallon. This way the farmer isn't selling milk, but rather charging for housing, management and milking the cows that belong to the customers. The customers get healthy raw milk and the farmer gets a much better price than if they sold it to the commercial buyers.

Whatleys book "How To Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres" is dated, but it's right on the money as far as the basics of how to set the farm up and operate it. The secret is to give the customer what they want at a good price and develop positive relationships with the customers. People really want to know where their food comes from and what's been done to it.

As far as the seasonal produce issue, it's something that Americans have been spoiled with. Everyone is used to getting all manner of exotic fruit year-round, which is a global business. When we lived in Kentucky, we were buying apples from Chile. Living in Venezuela, we get apples grown in Washington... go figure.

Anyway, for anyone who wants to have a local business that has loads of upside in a post-peak-oil environment, being a local food producer is a good bet. Growing and raising the stuff is not the difficult part... marketing and sales is the difficult part right now. When prices rise because of increased transportation costs though, you'll have a captive market and the ability to undersell your competitors.

[o2ny]

The "slow food" movement:
Slow Food USA

[dinopello]

This review of a new restaurant in my neighborhood declares that local sources is "more than a trend".

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut “local, regional, seasonal”—a virtual mantra among chefs these days—has proven so durable, it’s probably time to regard it as more than a trend. So thoroughly have its assumptions and attitudes saturated the scene that the question to ask of any ambitious new place is not whether it has embraced the principles but to what degree.

Harlan is an artisan—he sources his meats and vegetables locally and does his own butchering and pickling

One of the ironies of the menu is that many of the best plates are the simplest, such as a cheeseburger that is—surprise—not made with pig innards. It’s just a very good burger, with well-seasoned beef from, as my waiter put it “a happy local cow.” (Note to staff: Personification is not appetizing.)

[Shaved Monkey]

Local regional seasonal food needs a quantum shift in thinking about menu.
We have been conditioned to supermarket shop.
Go to most rural village/market in a 3rd world country and see what they eat and its fantastic far better than anything we eat in the west.
Obviously the warmer the climate the greater the range,but it didnt stop the great regional foods of Europe.
I was watching a show on Sicily last night,the host was saying the fundamental difference between Sicilians and people from the UK(could be Aus Can US generally anglo saxons) is we go to the shops with a menus and look for ingredients, they go to the market and let the produce create the menu.
Its the future.... the sooner we train ourselves the better our survival.