For one, I'd asked the wholesalers how far their produce traveled to the terminal market -- but what about the extra leg from the terminal market to the retail store?

I'd love to see this explored more thoroughly.

Another issue, which the author only mentioned in passing, is how the customer gets to the market. If you live in San Francisco or New York, maybe you pass a farmer's market on the way to work, or you can walk a few blocks to get to one. My job is in the suburbs, and I live near my job. But there are no farmer's markets near me. I finally found one that was open at hours when I could go, and it was 25 miles away. That means every time I wanted to buy some local vegetables, I had to make a 50 mile round trip. That's definitely not very efficient, compared to shopping at the local grocery store which is within walking distance of my apartment (but doesn't carry "local" produce).

There is something vaguely...odd about the tenor of the article. We are talking about food. The thing that keeps up us alive and we're quibbling about our incredible ability to get up and go buy food. Who could have ever guessed the struggle to get sustenance would be supplanted by a rejection of the bounty of that sustenance because it wasn't grown within a few miles?

And yet, I very much sympathize with people who take the article's concepts very seriously and want/need to do something. The awareness of our impact on things is what is needed to find a solution. But so much of this feels like a fad, as though we're committing ourselves to an agrarian system based on what we *think* is purer and more in tune with nature, but only when it comes to food. Otherwise it's business as usual. Bottled water, not bottled water; locally organic or not -- these seem like superficialities made to soothe our minds, not really to answer the more difficult issues our way of life poses.

I do not mean to be critical; I'm just making an observation. I am trying to figure this out along with others.

I'd love to see these things explored more thoroughly as well. I can see that if you live in San Francisco, most foods could already be "local" whether advertised as such or not. The area around San Francisco has a pretty constant growing season so it does not suffer seasonally to the same extent as much of the country. On the east coast food is just as likely to be shipped From CA as from anywhere nearby. In the winter nearly everything comes from CA or Mexico.

My family has been attempting to eat reasonably locally/organically for the past couple years and we've found the last couple months of winter pretty dreary. Fresh lettuce and tomatoes are available, but they're from Mexico or CA and the potatoes and cabbage that are available locally are not too appetizing.

I'm very lucky that much of the state I live in is still family farms and there are several organic farms to choose from. Local + organic + affordable is pretty attainable within 50 miles. The tough part is winter: Cabbage & potatoes, potatoes & cabbage, ad nauseam...

All the more reason to consider, if you have even a scrap of sun (yard or patio), doing a Square Foot Garden raised bed to grow some of your own vegetables.

It's simple. It's amazingly productive. It's delicious. It's fun. It involves NO transportation.

Get the book, Square Foot Gardening, &/or check out www.squarefootgardening.com. And for a more sophisticated view, read about Fritz Haeg's work, Edible Estates.

The common sense solution is so often overlooked.

This is insightful research, but if you take it at face value, the logical conclusion is to move towards increasingly specialized and intensive agricultural methods with higher volume transport. This only deepens the unsustainable agricultural hole we are digging for ourselves already, with unsustainable topsoil and aquifer depletion.

Perhaps the problem is that farmer's market produce is not local enough.

There's a small movement of people who produce much of their food in their own yards, using a self-sustaining combination of locally adapted wild plants. Soil is enriched by compost to close the fertilizer cycle. Watering is aided by rainwater storage and irrigation.

I'm sure many people look upon backyard agriculture with disdain, but what are the (sustainable) alternatives?

To me the real problem with the "eat locally" movement is that we need to get all our food from somewhere. We don't import bananas over hundreds of miles just to throw them away -- we eat them. If all of us tried to replace all of the imported foods we eat with locally-grown food, we'd immediately run into some serious shortages -- to say nothing of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Ted Nugent -- in the pages of Salon, I think -- was waxing rhapsodic about everyone hunting for their own meat when the interviewer asked about New York City. "There's great hunting within a hundred miles of New York," replied Ted, which is true, but he didn't run the numbers to determine if there's great hunting for eight million people within a hundred miles of New York. Of course, there isn't. Or there wouldn't be for long -- unless we wanted to start eating Canada geese (which contravenes international treaty). And maybe not even then.

There's a reason we developed the vast food supply infrastructure we have. And it may be wasteful and unsustainable in the long run, but that doesn't mean we can replace it with our own backyards and a few nearby farms. (Speaking for myself, I'd be a little afraid of eating too much from my own New Jersey backyard -- who knows what kinds of industrial waste are buried there?)

I almost went to flop in the sack without turning the 'gadget' on. You read research from some very excellent farm groups. Trust The Grower. Buy From A Good Heart Gardener. The saying` Show me your garden and I will speak of your heart. It's true. A human heart is a warm hearth in the cold season and a lovely garden/soul during the growing season.

`

Distance is much discussed at our Blueberry Hill Vegetable farm. It's a small, diverse, organic, and we (rather my son and his pregnant wife) operate a small local Community Supported Agriculture 'subscription' 'box' pick-up... The box includes the same foods as the Farmer Market but the CSA customers will get a the extra special goodies, such as: gooseberries, blueberries, flowers,

shallots, garlic weaves in season,

lavender wands etc., The CSA folk get the cream of the crops. It's a "grab-bag" feast for a family who cares about health/wholesome.

A musician teacher from the CSA loves to stop by at each opportunity she can. Her name is Melody. She's a rare gift who graces the Earth. She teaches music at a grammar school. She loves to volunteer. Of course we barter or pay labor-folk, but, just tonight the family topic of concern was the time-consuming berry picking is upon us. When that happens the garden manicure often gets neglected. *

Nature wild Dame comes to claim.

Natures weeds/ trees invites a forrest to return.

`

Most eaters know mustard gas is not made to be put in a jar by 'Gulden's' and maybe everyone doesn't know Heniz Ketchup Foundation(Heinz who started the farm interest was 9-years old. Read a interesting history on the web? I was teasing that Theresa Heinz won't likely drop-off a minivan, filled with a "catch-up" farm crew now in America from NAFTA's policy. I guess we all can learn something? I once ask a money-interest young apprentice to plant a seed in a raised green house bed. He wanted %-income and future profit shares! I thought? Why do YOU want less than a minimum wage? He approached my son about summer farming while both he and my son were in college. Never farmed, and now he wished to do a farm 'gig' and get rich?

He boasted long about how his engineer studies were a bore. The potential growing organic movement was catching his fancy. As he spoke, I did NOT see apples in his eyes balls? I saw '$' signs. Money.

He planted a seed like a cat would scat.

As we talked his confidence was more shaky.

If he shaved he'd cut his lower lip. I'm out of bandages.

It reminded me of a germ-phobic one who feared she'd sneeze after a kiss. huh. I wanted to tell the Cornell trained engineer to go get a tattoo of a apple on his neck. Put a big blue tongue on his shaven chin. huh. He's the guy who ain't experienced farming but, maybe he is a pharmacist or he's formed a band and got rich? He may be a successful podiatrist who is dreaming of the Buddha's foot? That is a name for a tropical flower that look like a human's foot. Buddha's flower.

P.S. My son grows cauliflower and celery better than any I've ever laid eyes on anywhere. His wife is from West Virginia and could make money modeling in high heels and be filthy rich.

`

I guess I'm windy. It is quite breezy outdoors. Gardening is what I love. I "hate" politico's.

Especially if they are obese and smoke a cigar at the fragrant Farm Market. I've not known what a panic attack is like post-war but, when I see that shopper in shorts, and a straw hat in a Hawaiian geese and flower shirt~Haw! I yell out in Arabic...Hawala!

I feel like panicking if he comes to my vendor booth.

It's this: "People want to do the best they can without pulling their hair out."Roberta Kwok. huh? Why do that? Respectfully, no hair in the soup. That sentence about wondering what to do? No one can tell another? 'd say Prepare For WHATEVER.

It was written in the second to last paragraph and made me remember the germ-phobic farmer who went to town to visit a podiatrist who was germ-phobic. He dreamt about Ladies in high-heel and toenailed feet-sandals. huh. Why not be a rich dentist or a criminal lawyer and eat out at Nora's in DC near Dupont Circle. Fly there She is so likable and was influenced by Rudolp Steiner, the eccentric astrological Australian. Please know I'm not being critical of anyone... we are all individuals on a wild journey? Often it's bewildering.

I am critical of Farmer Market Stands that only sell a box of Cracker Jack.

A Chinese handcuffs toy tears right away when you arrest rich shoplifters.

The caramel popcorn is so old it dislodges your gold tooth fillings. I NO`dentist.