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2:53 a.m. • 2-11-12

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'Buy local' trend also good for environment


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'Buy local' trend also good for environment
'Buy local' trend also good for environment

Some environmentalists say you can "go green" by buying locally-grown foods.

“We just had our minds set on buying some fresh stuff,” shopper Julia Alston said.

Alston says she liked to shop at the State Farmers Market, 1201 Agriculture St. in Raleigh. Some of her favorite purchases are center-cut ham and molasses.

"You want to keep your money where you live,” Alston said.

Farmer Mike Jones, of MAE Farm Meats, 57 Mitchell Church Way in Louisburg, agrees that everyone should try to buy local.

"If you buy local foods, you support your local farmers,” Jones said.

Buying local is big trend, according to Fred Thompson, publisher of "Edible Piedmont."

"In central North Carolina, we have a wealth of stuff that a lot of folks just don't know about,” Thompson said.

Buying locally-grown foods is also often healthier for the environment.

"We don't have run-off in the streams. We don't have problems because of overproduction on one piece of land,” Thompson said.

However, not everyone agrees about whether buying locally-grown foods reduces greenhouse gases. Last year, a study found only 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions resulted from delivery of food from farm to store.

RELATED TOPICS: Greenhouse Gases, Raleigh, Fred Thompson

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Wendell will be getting a mini Farmers Market as well running on Saturdays starting in May close to the Towne Square there.

Clayton is getting a farmers market! Grand opening is April 4th. It will run every Saturday from 8am-1pm on the Clayton town square from April 4-October 31. As a member of the board I can personally guarantee everything sold there will be grown within 50 miles of the town square. We will have children’s activities and educational opportunities for the whole family. For more information email claytonmarket@earthlink.net

ZMAN- I promise you the food at the farmers market was not shipped in. inside the building it does not have to be local, but at the outside portion of the raleigh farmers market is HAS to be local. So the corn they are selling is probably corn they stored for you during harvest and are selling now. Talk to the farmers if you want to know more.

Is this saying the produce sold in the winter months at the farmers market is local? Never saw a corn harvest in NC in January! I'd bet all the produce at the farmers market right now was shipped in from South America. Might as well buy at Food Lion.

Of course in the summer months we get local at the farmers market, but not necessarily!

I'll go for this "buy local", but the whole organic craze is a bunch of horse hockey.

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