The delicious pleasure of shopping at a local farmer’s market, picking fresh produce from a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm, or buying direct from a local farm stand is a rare experience for most Americans. If you live in a city, partaking in the harvest can be near impossible. Enter the power of the Internet.
Online shopping for fresh organic farm products is an easy and accessible way to help support small-scale, family farms. Leading the charge to connect family farms directly to consumers is LocalHarvest.org, a national directory of farmer’s markets and small farms as well as an online store featuring noteworthy products like almond blossom honey and hard-to-find gourmet mushrooms.
LocalHarvest.org allows you to buy directly from local and regional farms by entering your zip code for a custom list of local resources. Whether you want locally grown veggies delivered to your home on a weekly basis or to occasionally supplement your groceries with a few organic delicacies, LocalHarvest.org allows you to zero in on the family farms nearest you and lists farmer’s markets and online retailers in your area.
It comes as no surprise that small-scale family farms in the U.S. are rapidly disappearing. And factory farms that use chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides are a second-rate substitute for the heirloom, organic, and regional specialty produce that small family farms can offer. In California, where the economy depends on plentiful harvest, the movement to connect local farms with consumers has resulted in several online resources, including a searchable directory of local farms, instructions for those who want to pick up or purchase products, and details about joining a CSA farm, all available from BuyLocalCA.org.
Regional specialties like organic papayas from Hawaii and Massachusetts cranberries, as well as such items as free-range chicken, can be delivered to your door, all direct from family farms. With a few clicks, you can partake in unusual gourmet products like fingerling potatoes from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine or Vermont maple syrup direct from organic retailers such as SugarMill Farm.
For up-to-the-minute news about family farms, Family Farm Defenders, an advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin, offers ‘fair trade’ Wisconsin cheese direct from local producers alongside facts, figures, and news about family farms. With regional and national websites connecting consumers to farms, even the most urban of organic food lovers can surf their way to locally grown foods and support family farms in the process.
What are you waiting for, time to get online and support your local farmers!?
Kimberly Wilson
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