youtube project - buying locally
TRANSCRIPT
Buying Locally:
Food for thought
When you purchase food at the supermarket
do you know where it comes from?
Most likely,
you’ve never thought to look
If you were to take a look, you would notice that your pepper
is from California
It was picked 4-7 days ago,
& Traveled about 1500 miles to get to your supermarket
Now its on your plate.
Or it could be from Mexico
Asia
Canada
even South America
the typical prepared meal in America
contains ingredients from at least
5countries outside of the U.S.
The resulting pollution from the miles food travel from production to plate,
increase substantially
when we import from around the world
import of fruits, nuts and veggiesinto California by airplane
released more than 70,000 tons of CO2
That’s equivalent to more than
12,000 cars on the road
In 2005,
Currently… energy prices are low
The only factor that supports the
environmentally unfriendly & wasteful
food system our country enjoys
Small time family farms
with honest intentions are being shut down
To make way for large scale,business agriculture
fueled by the government
…Most often with hidden agendas
our oil and energy reserves
will not last forever
As you may know…
The Earth’s population will continue to grow
Putting a greater demand on our already
strained agriculture and environment
More food will be demanded
As a result…
we will be forced to reevaluate
the ways in which we feed our world
Soon,
We will need to place a greater emphasis on
energy efficiency
&small scale sustainable farms
Exactly like the ones that we outsource presently
our current agricultural methods are destroyingand polluting our land and water supplies
Unfortunately,
Our health is sufferingfrom the pollution we are creating
Our food security is being threatened
with no one else to blame but ourselves
Pollution from Importing food out of country
is putting a strain on
our environment & our health
We are already doing irreversible damage Why are we allowing it to worsen?
Purchasing local food is the best and easiest choice
for minimizing global warming & other pollutants
by choosing local produce, you reduce:
fuel consumption
global warming pollution
help lift local agricultural communities, strengthen the local economy
&protect the environment
all while eating fresher, tastier fruits and veggies
when you combine all locally grown food,
Less CO2emissions are released in transport
than any one imported product
Next time you’re in the market consider:
How far has the fruit/veggie traveled to reach your plate?
How much energy and fossil fuels were spent to transport that product?
Look at the label on the product
Some markets support local growers by selling their products in store
To learn more visit the following helpful sites :
www.nrdc.org/foodmiles
www.localharvest.org