Another reason to buy local food

Freight companies generate a lot of pollution. While transportation technologies and fuels have become more efficient, freight demands have also surged over the past two decades. Today, in the U.S. alone, for example, freight is responsible for about a quarter of all transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Most freight trucks, locomotives and ships run on diesel engines, which pump out nitrogen oxides, small particles, and carbon dioxide (CO2). Repeated exposure to nitrogen oxide-based smog and small particles has been linked to a wide range of human health problems. Then there's the damages being wrought in our atmosphere and ecosystems by CO2 emissions.

A 2005 analysis by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) showed that heavy duty trucks cause 78% of the freight-related pollution.
 
So how can you help? One way ... choose to buy food that is grown locally. This helps the local economy and small farmers plus it reduces pollution.

• Buy from farmers' markets.
• Support restaurants that buy locally grown items.
• Join a food co-op. Get in-season produce from local growers.

Links about locally grown food

• 10 reasons to eat local food
• Community supported agriculture
• Eat local
• Food co-cops
• Interactive map of local farmers' markets, CSAs, restaurants, ...
• Local is the new organic

Source: Based on an article in "EarthTalk"®, a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (http://www.emagazine.com/). You may be interested in the online archive of past EarthTalk articles or in the EarthTalk article news feed.