To the Editor:
We were very pleased with the DP's coverage of FarmEcology's effort to bring local food to Penn's campus in an article last week ("New Houston stand to feature local foods," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 3/25/05). In it, the reporter briefly mentioned the environmental benefit of "going local," but there are many more reasons that local food is advantageous -- especially for the Penn community.
FarmEcology hosted Penn's first ever "local-food dinner" on Thursday in collaboration with Aramark and Penn Dining. It was a huge success and attracted close to 350 participants. Today we officially launched the FarmEcology stand in Houston Market. It sells sandwiches, salads, soup and fresh food from local and organic farms.
But why go local? As the article mentioned, the fruits and vegetables that we buy in our local supermarket have spent an average of two weeks -- and over 1,500 miles -- in transport. Local food is fresher, and it cuts down on energy spent to truck all our produce from California or Florida. Why spend 10 percent of our national energy consumption on transporting food that is currently available from regional farms?
We have actually reached a point in this country where there are more prisoners than farmers. In terms of dollars per acre, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has proven that small farms are more productive than factory farms, yet these farmers receive less than 20 cents of each food dollar we spend. Most of the money we spend on food goes to advertisements and transportation.
Penn currently spends over $4 million a year on food and dining services. While instituting a necessary change in our eating habits, we can use our buying power to effect change in the broader community. Supporting the smaller farms in our area benefits us with healthier and better-tasting food, it reduces our total energy expenditure and it benefits the producers by stimulating economic growth in our region.
Emma Kirwan,
College '07
Rachel Meyer,
College '07
The authors are founders of FarmEcology
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