Green Daily

I think an interesting hybrid would be to hire farmers to produce near suburban supermarkets. It might be a more of a modern take on farmers' markets, but in this case, suburban sprawl would be balanced out with farmland. Farms could also double up as community parks and mitigate heat island effects. Of course, I may be wrong because of soil quality, water usage and drainage, and zoning issues to name a few. However, the quality of life may increase nearby.

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I bet it makes a big difference for the families of the locals you buy from.

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Even if producing food locally takes more money and labor, if it reduces fossil fuel use (such as for transporting the food), wouldn't that probably make it better for the environment?
I also read recently that smaller farms are almost always more productive per acre than larger farms.

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These arguments come straight from the mindset that brought us all the joys of industrial food: tasteless produce, tainted meat, GMO crops, constant recalls and an avalanche of health problems. The idea of judging local farms (which in my neck of the woods, tend to be small-scale, often organic operations) against the massive farms (which practice monoculture and chemically-intensive production methods) is like comparing fine dining to McDonalds and saying fine dining is inefficient and therefore inferior. My feeling is these arguments against local food are motivated by fear and are a sign that the industrial food complex is frightened that we Americans are on the verge of waking up from our corn-fed coma and will soon realize how bad most of our food really is.

Avery Yale Kamila
http://www.communetestedcityapproved.blogspot.com/

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I think that it is always more advantageous for people to be self-sustaining than dependent on centralized monolithic corporate production models. I would like to see everyone growing enough food for themselves in their backyard garden, and these corporate monsters out of business altogether. It's not individuals who have destroyed our planet in the last 100 years, it's corporations with their greed agendas and lack of accountability. An argument against people growing their own food for themselves? Bizarre, and unnatural.

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This seems like a somewhat ridiculous article for a "green" site.
The misinformation that abounds out there astounds me. Of course a smaller farm is more efficient. There have been many studies proving that small farms (under 100 acres) produce more per acre than the industrialized big farms. The also tend to use sustainable farming practices making them viable for the longterm. Whoever is trying to convince people that "bigger is better" when it comes to food production has to be making alot of money off of that same industrialized food.

Eat Smart. Eat Local. Eat Better. End of story.

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