Some places have more challenging growing conditions, where those poorer conditions might force farmers to use energy-consuming factors such as feed, fertilzer, etc.. than growing something something further away but in a more abundant enviornment. And, once you start factoring in, growing something local might actually cause more damage to the environment than something distant but efficient even if you have to ship it.

By the way, Barbara, have you had a chance to read the biography of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse yet. If its not too late, my recommendation would be to stay away from it.

Harry may be correct about them when he is talking about big urban markets, but here in small-town America–where a lot of Americans live, btw–and in rural America–farmers markets are not as inefficient as flying produce in from Mexico or China and then trucking it across the US.

Here in Athens, our farmers for our market come from only about fifty miles away at the farthest–and we have a market on Saturday as well as one on Wednesday.

Here, local food DOES make more sense than non-local food, and it brings more money into a small community and it provides jobs in a struggling Appalachian economy. So–local food is not “one size fits all.”

Just because it is not a perfect solution for large urban areas does not mean farmers markets don’t work elsewhere. Don’t make that assumption.