To continue on with my previous post about Green being the new catch word of environmental marketing, I have to take a moment to regard the new trend in buying local. Sure, we all went organic, we all read with great concern how pesticides and chemicals are stunting our collective growths, and we cheered when Wal-mart started carrying organic food. We reached deep into our pockets and paid up for organic milk because we had heard wicked stories about puss dripping utters. After Oprah’s Green special we went out and purchased cloth bags so that when asked “Paper or Plastic?” we answered, “Neither.”
The organic label has been a political playground as the FDA entertains lowering the standards of what can be labeled ‘organic.’ This tampering has caused a large backlash among the purists: Back off corporate America! Certain ingredients are not organic, (like food coloring, baking soda, etc.), no matter how lenient you want to be. Bumper stickers scream out at me on my commute home: “You Were Born Organic And Free,” “Eat Non-Organic At Your Own Risk, and my favorite, “Healthy Crops, Healthy Craps.”
Perhaps this strong reaction against changing the organic standards created the Buy Local movement. This is the whole idea that, sure, you can buy organic but how many miles did your organic strawberries travel to get to you? Were they frozen on the way? Did you buy them at a huge corporate-y store? From NPR to the internet, the new bestest thing is to NOT buy organic produce from Safeway but buy local. If you’re gonna spend the big bucks (and believe me, you do) spend it on your local farmer.
Now…the actual going to a farmer’s market. I have found that in my two years of regular market attendance that they can go either way, boiling down to either the fun, community-building, feel good experience, or the crowded, stifling, self-indulgent slog. I’ve gone in the rain, in the sweltering heat, after battling rush hour traffic and a full day of work behind me. A good day at the market is one where I feel very connected to everyone there. The farmers stop and talk with me, they throw in an extra tomato for my salsa, they share cooking and gardening advice. A bad day is when I have to wait in line for ten minutes to buy a flat of strawberries; the people in front of me keep eating berries off the random flats, irritating the farmer–who is very busy–and myself. I have to keep track of which flats they kept their fingers out of so I can choose the one with the most berries to take home. A crowded market means chaos, rifling through picked over peaches, over-hearing the most pompous, hifalutin, conversations about how great Metropolitan Market is, the local playground at Madison Park, and comparisons to our local cheese with the kind you can buy in the south of France (jerks, I want to go to France).

The opposite perspective is to look at the impact local farms have on communities: do they employ illegal immigrant labor? Are they using pesticides? Are they using heavy, gas guzzling machinery to do the work instead of employing real people? Sure, there are those costs to weigh in too. However, all politics and marketing aside, there is something very smug and satisfying about swinging your little cloth bag under your arm filled with produce while holding a large bouquet of fresh flowers: You just know you did the right thing.