by Elizabeth Blankenship

Created on: April 29, 2008   Last Updated: July 22, 2008

I moved to a very small farming town. Now my family and our home are surrounded by acres and acres of fields filled with corn, soy beans, alfalfa, winter wheat, and other sustainable crops. Most of the farms in my new community are small or medium sized. Some are still family owned and operated.

Before being adopted into my new community, I was like the majority of consumers here in the U.S. I never really thought about where the food I was buying at my local conglomerate grocery store was coming from. I never thought about were it was grown or in what conditions the crops were grown in. Whenever there was a scare like the last spinach or cantaloupe scare, I would stay clear of that particular food crop while grocery shopping until my memory faded.

I have been welcomed and embraced by my newly adopted rural farming community. My eyes have been opened to the lack of thankfulness our local farmers receive from our nation on a whole. I have learned that farming and our local farmers can be a vital part of the local and national food chain. If there are no more farmers then you as well as I do not have food. If our farmers do not abide by local, state, and national regulations you and I could become ill or even die from eating the foods we are buying at our grocery stores.

I have learned that our local farmers are very concerned about keeping us all safe. That farmers are not afraid to get dirty, they are not afraid to work hard, farmers care about our environment, preserving our lands, they care that their crops thrive as well as their livestock. Farmers care about each other, their community, and the nation.

I have learned that, in the short six years that I have lived in my rural farming community many local farms have been sold off because it is so hard to stay in business. Small family run farms have been foreclosed on because they can not compete with the huge, sometimes foreignly owned farms here in the US. It can be devastating for the families and the community. It is hard to make a profit. Many farmer's children are opting to get out of the family run business and choosing to take a different career path then their fathers and mothers before them. As these farms are being auctioned off and Farmer's children choose a different career path, part of our American heritage is fading away.

As a nation we import crops that could be grown or are grown right here in the U.S. As consumers were are buying globally masses produced crops from most of our grocery stores. From countries that may or may not be as concerned about food safety as we are here in the U.S. Do we really know in what conditions these crops have been grown? It seems to me that it would be easier for local and national Agricultural food safety policing Agencies, like the USDA to oversee crops produced primarily here in our own country. Then crops grown overseas. Our Food Safety Policing Agencies are under funded, under staffed, and far over worked to be in every country we import from, as well as policing over U.S. grown crops.

With rising fuel costs and the economic pinch most Americans are feeling today, it seems like it is our responsibility to embrace our local farmers and to buy our crops locally. To support our local farmers. I like knowing where my food comes from and what conditions the crops or livestock are grown in. If people begin to buy locally and support our local small farmers, we will begin to see a shift in the need, for smaller farms crops. Our smaller farms would begin to flourish again and begin to diversify crops to meet consumers needs. I now am a strong supporter of going greener and buying locally.

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