[Cherry tomatoes on a white plate]
I'm so very proud of my plants!!!!!
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Nature and Gardening
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Yay! I feel bad when I want tomatoes but the only ones in the store have been schlepped half way across the world. Makes me wonder if we really need tomatoes in winter, and also how it could possibly be cheaper to import tomatoes than grow them locally.
My personal revolution is trying to minimize grocery store trips in favor of participating in a local CSA (community supported agriculture) and cooking from scratch as often as possible.
I noticed that during the driver shortages in the US, produce from Cali was noticeably more expensive than local produce (NC region), which made me angry. Chains like target/Walmart didn't bother selling fruit from local farms and would rather sell marked up fruit from Cali. Watermelons grown in the same region were $2-3, whereas from Cali were $5-8. Fortunately grocery store chains did have locally grown produce for cheaper.
I'm NC region as well, 7b represent :) I keep seeing tomatoes from Canada at Lowes Food
The sad truth is land and labour are expensive and regulations make it cost prohibitive.
I wonder if that equation would shift (or by how much) if negative externalities like pollution from transportation were factored into pricing at mega grocery stores. There are a number of food co-ops in towns around me that seem to offer local produce at lower prices than "organic" offerings at big grocery stores, which makes me wonder how much is just markup?!
Maybe it's just not worth the shelf-space and employee time to develop local supply networks...Who knows, maybe eventually we'll (universal) start to think of over-concentration of food distribution networks as the giant risk that it is and start to price in resilience of supply as well. It will be hard to convince a population -- used to endless supply of everything all the time -- that food is naturally seasonal, and that there may just not be ripe tomatoes from Mexico in January. It could even make growing crops needed in local food-sheds more economically viable than growing whatever is in the most demand at a national/international level.