Humans have been moving food around the world for thousands of years. Toward the end of the second century BC, merchants traveled along the Silk Road, transporting noodles from Xi’an, grapes from Dayuan and nutmeg from the Moluccas Islands to eager buyers along its 4,000-mile network. While it’s possible to trace the evolution of food through that matrix of ancient caravan routes that linked China to the West, it’s hard to measure its environmental impact. It’s likely that, as with any road, wildlife corridors were disrupted. But greenhouse gas emissions were fairly low, consisting of the methane from the belches and farts of the horses, yaks and Bactrian camels, and the fires that humans burned along the way. Fast-forward to the 20th-century U.S. Modern transportation and the rise of post-World War II suburban life changed the agricultural trade-and the way we ate. After the war, planned communities like the Levittowns in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania-built by the real estate development company Levitt & Sons-sprang up across the country, welcoming returning veterans who were eligible for low-interest, government-backed mortgages.
Meanwhile, the Federal Highway Act of 1956 authorized the construction of 40,000 miles of interstate highways to span the nation. During the 1950s, land values in the suburbs increased rapidly-in some prime suburban neighborhoods as much as 3,000 percent-while population swelled by 45 percent. Nearly two-thirds of all industrial construction during the 1950s was taking place outside cities; residential construction in the suburbs accounted for an astonishing 75 percent of total construction. This new post-war suburban lifestyle was anchored by the supermarket. Stocked regularly by refrigerated trucks rolling into suburban towns, they made one-stop shopping just a short drive away. Between 1948 and 1958, average sales per grocery store more than doubled, even after adjusting for food price inflation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Families moved away from buying locally produced foods and toward processed foods made in centralized plants. During the 1950s, the marketing charges for processing and shipping farm food products hit a new record every single year.
By 1961, the "farm-to-retail price spread"-the difference between the retail price paid by the consumer and the payment to the farmer for equivalent farm products by food marketers and processors-was up 34 percent from 1950. In other words, the market was steadily moving toward processed foods, and away from whole foods. Today, some urban dwellers don’t even need to drive to go food shopping. If I want fresh strawberries in the middle of winter, I can simply walk down the block to my local grocer and buy some that were grown in California, Florida or Mexico. But if I want one that’s locally grown and in season, I’ll have to wait until June, when farmers at my local greenmarket start selling berries grown in New York state. Transporting fresh berries across the country or from Mexico is certainly more carbon-intensive than bringing them in from Long Island or upstate. So, I have to ask myself: Do I really need a strawberry in winter?
That’s the kind of question driving the local food movement. While more than half of the fresh fruit and nearly a third of fresh vegetables, wine and sugar purchased in the U.S. According to market research firm Statista, 14 percent of Americans consumed locally grown food twice a week in 2013. But just a year later, that number grew to more than 20 percent. Farmers’ markets are where people go to find food that is locally produced and in season. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2014 National Farmers Market Manager Survey, virtually all farmers’ markets (99 percent) sell locally grown fresh fruits or vegetables. And about two-thirds (66 percent) offer USDA-certified organic produce. The agency’s 2006 survey found that seasonal markets "remained the dominant type of farmers market in every part of the country … Between 2008 and 2014, local food Sales (https://shoedrop.shop) in the U.S. 5 billion to $12 billion, according to Packaged Facts, a food industry research firm.
They estimate that local foods will outpace the annual total sales of all foods and beverages, reaching almost $20 billion by 2019. Moreover, while "locavore"-one who eats locally produced food-is a relatively recent term (coined in 2005 and named "Word of the Year" by Oxford American Dictionary two years later), there was a time when all food was locally sourced-before Kobe beef from Japan or pineapples from Costa Rica were shipped to hungry eaters across the globe. Today, advancements in technology and infrastructure have helped make exporting and importing foods and fresh produce big business. Improved roads and storage technologies have made shipping perishables easier, while international trade agreements have reduced tariffs on imports. In addition, low wages, lowered production costs due to increased scale of production and the monopoly of agribusiness has created cheap labor markets across the food system. Furthermore, in the U.S., many staple foods simply can’t be domestically produced on a scale to satisfy the standard American diet. Post has be en cre at ed wi th the help of GSA Con tent G en er at or Demov ersion !