Could "Buying Local and Farm Fresh Foods" Be a Scam? Op-ed Article

In April of 2016, Laura Reiley shook the world with a multi-faceted series of articles explaining to the citizens of Florida that they were being fed lies. The lies they were ingesting turns out to be more than just words. Reiley uncovered that restaurants in Florida are luring consumers in by using “farm fresh” and “local foods” when in fact, their foods are hardly local at all. Reiley had spent months reviewing restaurant menus, collecting samples of fish for DNA testing, calling producers and vendors and visiting farms.

Back in early 2014, people became more enthralled with the idea of buying farm fresh food rather than supporting some major corporations. This became known as The Local Food Movement. This movement, even though nowhere close to being a new concept, has gained momentum within the recent years, causing the word “local” to appear in all kinds of headlines and ingredients. However, as the fad began to grow, more and more restaurants and food labels began to exploit what local truly means. By looking at the regulations of the United States of Department of Agriculture, there seems to be no true definition of what “local food” truly is.

What people expected to see as they sat down at a restaurant with farm fresh and locally harvested produce is bright colors, divine taste, and fresh from the ground vegetables. However, what they most likely got was imported fruits and vegetables that have some preservative on it to allow it to still be edible after transport. Local foods can mean a multitude of different things. Consumer studies report that the average consumer thinks “local” food means either within an eighty-mile radius or from within the same state. Retailers like Publix and Whole Foods define “local” as from within the same state, while other retailers like Safeway defines it within an eight-hour drive. In an even further stretch of the definition the 2008 Farm Act lumped “local” and “regional” together and gave them a definition of within a 400-mile radius. Corporations have more of an incentive to define local food in a larger area because that federal regulation is very strict on laws that discriminate against out-of-state products. This inadvertently encourages the shipment of food from outside one’s region. They’re only okay with it if federal law gives specific permission about favoring locally grown food such as the National School Lunch Act.

This is a shame because foods that were actually grown locally benefit the consumer’s body. Fruits and vegetables lose nutrients once they are harvested from the ground. Vegetables have a high vitamin content. By the time most vegetables are finally off the grocery shelves, their vitamin content has lowered significantly causing the food to not be as nutritious to the human body. Buying local produce cuts down travel time from farm to table. Speaking of travel time, most foods are shipped thousands of miles from the farm to the shelves causing a large carbon footprint. Surveys conducted at farmer’s markets have found that people tend to shop there because they think the food is of higher quality and tastes better. For example, a recent survey conducted at a farmer’s market in Brownsville, Texas, found that more than 80 percent of shoppers said the produce was better than what they found at other places they shopped. More than half said they ate more fruit and vegetables as a result of shopping at the market.

Not only will buying locally affect the consumer, but it also affects the producer and the local economy. farms that sell their products locally may boost economic growth in their communities in some regions of the U.S., per a team of economists. Using county-level data from the 2002 and 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture, a team of researchers located in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development analyzed the link between direct farm sales, sales made directly from farmer to consumer, and total farm sales. When they examined the data on a national basis, they found a positive but not statistically significant relationship between the two.

However, it’s not just corporations or advertisers that are fibbing, consumers can also be lied to at local farmer’s markets. An investigation led by the local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles discovered multiple false claims by famers. This problem is getting out of hand. To combat this, we need higher regulation on foods. There should be more federal regulation or at least public service announcements to educate the populace for when they are being duped.