You feel pretty virtuous when you buy local food. It’s fresher,
maybe even more nutritious, proponents say. Now advocates are pushing
another selling point: Local food strengthens the economy. It keeps
money in local communities and helps create jobs, which in turn can
help reduce crime.

Wow. And you thought all you were getting was a really good peach.

Sarah DeWeerdt rounds up the facts about local food and economic development in a new, excellent article in World Watch.
The money farmers earn goes in large part to buy seeds, animal feed and
fertilizers from outside the region. In southeast Minnesota, farmers
spend $996 million to grow $912 million worth of crops. Similar
patterns are found in Iowa, Arizona and Washington.

Producing local food could change that, DeWeerdt reports. If those
people in southeastern Minnesota bought just 15 percent of their food
from local sources, it would generate two-thirds as much income as all
the region’s farmers receive from subsidies. If the population in and around Seattle bought 20 percent of their food
dollars at local businesses, it would inject an extra billion dollars
each year into the local economy.

“Every
time money changes hands within a community, it boosts the community’s
overall income and level of economic activity, and fuels the creation
of jobs,” DeWeerdt explains. “The more times money changes hands within
the community before heading elsewhere, the better off the community
is. And spending money at a locally based business has a greater
multiplier effect, the theory goes, because locally owned businesses
are more likely to respend their dollars locally.”

The article draws on pioneering work by Ken Meter,
president of the Crossroads Research Center in Minneapolis, who has
studied the benefits of local food for more than 20 years. The
argument, Meter told me, is catching on. It’s not only foodies who are
interested in local food. It’s state and county economic development
officers. This is happening even in the Midwest, where production
agriculture has long ruled supreme.

Of course, DeWeerdt rightly notes that many of the potential
benefits of “shifting food dollars to the local food system are just
that: potential.” To date, she reports, no community has actually
undertaken a sharp enough shift to see if predictions come true. And,
it’s hard to tell how a change to consumer behavior would affect the
larger economy.

Still, government officials appear willing to explore how local food
can help bolster rural economies. Last week, Deputy Secretary of
Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan sent out a memo
that highlighted USDA funds available to help build local food systems.
The total amount of money available: up to $1.24 billion.

Good for you. Good for the economy. You have to admit, it makes that
local corn or peach or tomato taste just that little bit more delicious.