Farm this

“All right, I’m up”
“We are out front,” exclaims my sister “ I called you three times already!”
“I will be out the door in two minutes.”
I roll out of bed man my head hurts; I chug two glasses of water and brush my teeth vigorously. Throw on some shorts, a wrinkled shirt, my Birkenstock sandals, and of course my shades, without these the sun would be blinding this time of year. I jump into my sister’s car, my mom and her waiting patiently.
It’s 9:45 on Saturday the third week of July. I am beyond excited and hung-over, my breath the topic of conversation more than once, reeking of Liquor. Why the hell am I up, only sleeping four hours after walking two miles home drunk? Seasonal, local fruit and vegetables of course, the amazing Athens Farmers Market is my destination. Look nowhere else for some of the best tasting food you will ever experience. Lettuce that was picked yesterday, vine ripened heirloom tomatoes of all varieties, mushrooms, and of course my favorite the wide array of fruit. Even some farmers carrying a few Asian vegetables, locally made cheddar and goat cheeses, along with middle eastern salads and deserts, only to name a few of the many options.
Needless to say the option are endless, although maybe not as abundant as they’re corporate multinational counterparts down the street, in terms of selection or quantity. Quality surely takes the cake, grown on local soil barely traveled, ripened to its fullest extent and then picked. No chemical ripening goes on here and many of the farmers even claim to be organic. Even the ones that might not be organically certified due to the high cost required to gain certification, tout their growing methods as being “spray free.” What can they tell me at the store about my food, maybe the state or country that it derived in regards to produce? Ironically nowadays the food I eat travels more than I do in a day, for some more than they travel in a lifetime for one meal’s worth of food.
You may be thinking so what sure I shop at the grocery store what’s wrong with that? The truth is the shipment of food is one of the biggest wastes on our environment with millions of barrels of oil wasted. Before we were able to ship things worldwide people ate locally, seasonally, and healthier. Their meet was pasture fed and their produce was not overridden with chemicals and genetically modified organisms. Today it seems almost impossible to find any information about what used to produce your food unless you feel like buying organic. Even then what can a little label and a few extra bucks get you, piece of mind?
You might feel better for a while about your choice of organic but what does that word really mean, and can you regard something as organic if it shipped from South America. I would surely say that the term organic was not first introduced as a niche market for the wealthy, but as a choice to eat unadulterated food. It was created because people were concerned about where our food chain was heading and from where it began became a concern. Some people starting waking up deciding not to eat factory-farmed meat, while millions still sit apathetically, concerned with more taxing information.
Truth be told if we fail to change the way we eat, the cost on the future of the environment and humans is a concern. The water ways get polluted daily with run off from farms due to too much animal waste and the water pumped full of antibiotics and steroids. The animals themselves being fed mostly a diet of corn only to fatten them up, which in turn makes more profit, but in reality is costing us our health due to the excess fat. The vegetables are grown on soil that is so bare from all the chemicals used that the only way to make it fertile is to use more chemicals, a never-ending process that seems only to get worse.
What can you do, how can you help, what needs to change? People need to eat locally especially in season, why not if the food tastes better and benefits local farmers? People need to no eat out of season produce that was grown in South America and then shipped far. As a whole if we don’t change you might not see a difference immediately but eventually it will have an impact. What would you do one day if the grocery store ran out of food, where would you find you food supply and would it last?