The beautifully colored produce, community togetherness, and fresh air are just some of the things we love about taking a trip to the local farmer's market. CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture) has compiled this list of additional reasons to shop at your local farmer's market. Here are some things that really jumped out at us, but be sure to check out the article for the full text.

Protect the Environment

Food in the U.S. travels an average of 1,500 miles to get to your plate. All this shipping uses large amounts of natural resources (especially fossil fuels), contributes to pollution, and creates trash with extra packaging. Conventional agriculture also uses many more resources than sustainable agriculture and pollutes water, land, and air with toxic agricultural by-products. Food at the farmers market is transported shorter distances and is generally grown using methods that minimize the impact on the earth.

Discover the Spice of Life: Variety

At the farmers market you find an amazing array of produce that you don’t see in your average supermarket: red carrots, a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes, purple cauliflower, stinging nettles, green garlic, watermelon radishes, quail eggs, maitake mushrooms, and much, much more. It is a wonderful opportunity to savor the biodiversity of our planet.

Promote Humane Treatment of Animals

At the farmers market, you can find meats, cheeses, and eggs from animals that have been raised without hormones or antibiotics, who have grazed on green grass and eaten natural diets, and who have been spared the cramped and unnatural living conditions of feedlots and cages that are typical of animal agriculture.

It has always obvious to us that shopping at the farmers market would put beautiful, fresh food on our tables. More than that though, we love having the opportunity to be part of a community that supports each other and our environment.