Recent Produce Articles

As many people who know me (and even some who don’t) are aware, I am passionate about local food.

Why? Buying locally keeps money in our local economy; it gives us access to fresh healthy food; it intensifies our connection with place, seasonality and climate; it ensures our local and regional food security; it allows us to have a greater connection with the people who grow our food and to know with certainty that those farmers are practicing their craft in a way that’s healthy for the land, animals, and plants they grow.

Surprisingly, one of the reasons most commonly given in support of local food is not as clear-cut as it may seem: Local and regional foods are shipped short distances and so are more sustainable than food shipped thousands of miles. Right? Not always.

It turns out when looking at the carbon footprint of food, miles-to-market is just one small factor in the equation. Of equal importance is how it’s grown, how it’s stored, and most importantly for this discussion, the methods of transport used to get it from the farm to your table.

I don’t know about you, but these next couple of months are the hardest for me to get through here in Wisconsin. The end of winter is upon us, but spring still seems an eternity away. Though it may seem that way, there’s no doubt that warm weather is coming. In the local produce world, late winter is the time for farmers and produce managers to prepare for the upcoming growing season. Good planning now is vital if we are to have a successful spring, summer, and fall.

For our local farmers, February represents the end of a much needed winter break. Though there isn’t a lot of hard physical labor to be done, planning for the coming year requires many hours poring over seed catalogs, mapping crop locations and timing, repairing equipment, lining up seasonal workers, purchasing supplies, and a myriad of other tasks necessary to ensure a successful growing season.

We’re busy planning for the coming year here in the Produce department, too. Each January, we sit down with many of our local farmers to map out the growing season. We talk through the previous year, and based on what worked and didn’t work, we agree on a new plan.