Looking for reasons to support local producers?

USUALLY one of the biggest obstacles to supporting local food producers is lack of effort. This is all the more frustrating when 99.9 percent of people are consciously, and ethically, aware of the benefits that come from supporting local food. Here’s five good reasons why you should make an effort:

1. Ethical Treatment of Animals: Local food producers are invariably committed to ensuring animals are treated ethically. Animals that are reared for slaughter on a smaller scale tend to enjoy a better life. Even for vegetarians, the option of purchasing free range eggs are cheeses that are produced at a smaller scale carry higher ethical value.

2. Food Knowledge: A key benefit that comes from buying local produce is the knowledge gained from the experience. Buying from smaller farmers is a way of learning about the origin, preparation and uses in a vast array of products. This also includes recipes and cooking demonstrations by people who are as passionate about selling food as you are about buying it.

3. Taste: This may sound like a no brainer but food that is grown and produced locally tastes 100 percent better. Fruits and vegetables you buy at the Farmers’ Market are the freshest and tastiest available. With no long-distance shipping, chemicals and a short timespan from harvesting to purchasing, it makes taste stand out. Fresh from farm to fork.

4. Community Hub: What Farmers’ Markets and local producers manage to achieve is a community of likeminded people. People of a similar mind-set and ethos will find a community/forum in which to share, promote and educate each other on the joys of local food.

5. Environmentally Sound: This is very important when one considers the huge distances that some of our most common vegetables have to travel. For example, buying (or growing) your onions from a local source is better than buying onions that have been shipped from the Netherlands to our supermarkets. Reduce your carbon footprint by growing and buying locally produced food.

Pictured at Tralee’s Farmer’s Market were Aidan O’Connor, Gerard and Ian O’Carroll from Tralee . Photo by Domnick Walsh