Organic or Local?

Thank you freeranger. You are a wealth of great information. I like your website too. It’s too bad you don’t live near me, I’d buy your eggs.

Don’t ya just love small town life? The “bucket system” is a great idea.

Have you asked him if he uses pesticides and fertilizers? I read somewhere that small farmers frequently use more of these than commercial farmers because they apply them without the aid of mechanical equipment and over-use.

People always assume that small-town rural people, farm without these things, but it simply isn’t true. There are farms everywhere in my area, and only a handful of them care about farming naturally or organically.

I’d love to say organic but it just isn’t easy to come by locally. The cost can be prohibitive too sometimes even when I can get it.

We do have a small farm close by though where the farmer has an old fashioned roadside stand selling fresh fruit and veg. He even has an honor system where he just leaves out a bucket for you to pay him for what you take if he’s not around.

Given the choice of two identical products, which would you choose? The organic product flown in from miles away, or the local product that’s been produced using conventional (chemical) methods?

Certainly where I am, getting a product that’s both organic AND local is difficult.

It’s a difficult question to answer. I’d probably go with the local food. If it didn’t have to travel half way around the world, then I’d choose link. There are some things I buy organic whenever I can like egg, milk.

organic food>link. There are some things I buy organic whenever I can like egg, milk.

I would choose local every time, but I would not but eggs unless they were free range and I would want to be clear about the welfare standards of meat. If I couldn’t be sure of that I would go without meat or eggs.

I would choose local every time, but I would not buy eggs unless they were free range and I would want to be clear about the welfare standards of meat. If I couldn’t be sure of that I would go without meat or eggs.

I feel much the same, I will always buy local if I can, but welfare standards matter to me too.

I would always choose local as long as I was happy about the welfare standards for any meat, eggs etc.

We buy our meat locally, just because we buy in large quantities from friends who raise their own food organically. We can divide and freeze our meat for the long term. We buy veggies in season locally to support local farms, but none has gone totally organic as of yet. We buy free range eggs, and if they aren’t available, we go without. Most of our local grocery stores stock organic vegetables, which works for us in the Winter.