Shopping Local......

Last week I went shopping to our local butchers, who also has a local fruit and vegie counter. He is producing our Christmas ham himself from local pork. His meats are all local or no more than a couple of hundred kilometres away, he knows his suppliers and can tell you anything you want to know about the product and the same goes with the local producers of the fruit and vegies. Now perhaps I am a bit of a nerd, but to me this is exciting, wonderful stuff!

In a world that is gripped by one financial crisis after another, in a world where the dollar needs continual growth but is attached to finite resources, it is about time we all took stern stock of how we can increase our own local resilience ready for the challenging times ahead where oil costs increase considerably....and we have already seen how that will make our food much more costly.

It's time to consider the real costs to a community that loses its local business base. Independent local businesses employ a wide array of supporting services. They hire architects, designers, carpenters, sign writers and contractors for construction. Opportunities grow for local accountants, insurance brokers, computer consultants, lawyers, advertising agencies and staff to help run it. Local retailers and distributors also carry a higher percentage of locally-made goods than the chains, creating more jobs for local producers.

In contrast, a new chain store typically puts in place a clone of other units, eliminates the need for local planning, and uses a minimum of local goods and services. In a company-owned store, the profits are promptly exported to corporate headquarters.....and that more often than not is overseas!

If we all chose to shop locally we would have more choice and a better price, it's the same old game of numbers. Instead we chose cheap nasty products, made god knows where most times by people who are paid a pittance and the money flies not just out of our community, but out of our country in many instances. Stop and think about your community right now... If it's anything like many smaller towns, the food is controlled by Coles & Woolies, if they left town tomorrow where would you be?

Local owners with much of their life savings invested in their businesses have a natural interest in the long-term health of the community. Community-based businesses are essential to charitable endeavors, frequently serving on local boards, and supporting a variety of causes. Local businesses build our community, give it greater strength when times are hard and often provide a far superior product.

Have you ever thought about your food miles when you're eating snow peas from China?

Food Miles in Australia: A Preliminary study of Melbourne, Victoria by Asha Bee Abraham and Sophie Gaballa, estimates the distances travelled for food items found in a typical shopping basket and the resulting greenhouse emissions from this transportation.

The research revealed that food items like oranges, sausages, tea, baked beans etc with ingredients sourced from overseas have seen more of the world than most people. The report estimates that the total distance travelled by 29 of our most common food items is 70,803 km—that's nearly two times the distance around the Earth.

Calculating road transport alone, the shopping basket travelled 21,073 km, almost the whole way around Australia's coastline. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions estimate for all food transporting trucks carrying these 25 items on any given day is the equivalent of 2,830 cars driving for a whole year. And that's just for one shopping basket of 25 items.

The Solution? What about choosing to buy organic, that will help the planet?

Well, no Food miles still count here, what you need to do is:
• Buy Locally Produced direct from farmers either at the farm gate, farmers markets or shops that buy local produce and sell on.
• Buy in Season avoid summer fruits in winter.
• Grow your Own - now we are talking food feet, not food miles (This is my all time favourite thing to do, nothing better than walking outside and picking your dinner)
• Learn to preserve the excess and
• Buy canned or bottled goods from your own country by preference.

Buying local is all about bringing resilience back into your community. It is about US taking responsibility for creating demand for local sustainable practices and doing something about it through our choices.

I think it is time to ask ourselves the hard question.....why buy another countrys product when we can support local, or at least Aussie! For many I fully realise there is a budget in mind, and not much room to move in it. But that is where smart shopping comes in, buying on special, using less and making it go further etc.......there are options that would allow even those on a budget to buy local, it just takes smart planning and usuage in most cases.

It eases the load on our environment, it builds local community resilience, it is often healthier, you have greater knowledge of the product you are purchasing, and being local you can build some great networks and friendships.