Buying from a local farmer can mean that he makes a two-hour extra truck drive, which can damage the environment more than a bunch of bananas on a boat.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As the revenue of the farmer is realized in raw produce, or in the value of raw produce, he is interested, as well as the landlord, in its high exchangeable value, but a low price of produce may be compensated to him by a great additional quantity.
The duty of the individual farmer, at this time, is to increase his production, particularly of food crops.
If you don't have an ethic of conservation, you basically have a license to drive a Hummer through the Amazon.
When we cut the price for bananas by 1 ruble, we sell 100 tons a day more... There are people who live within their budget.
We've got this cultural mentality that you've got to be an idiot to be a farmer.
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
When the farmer can sell directly to the consumer, it is a more active process. There's more contact. The consumer can know, who am I buying this from? What's their name? Do they have a face? Is the food they are selling coming out of Mexico with pesticides?
The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.
Factory farming came about from a moral race to the bottom, with corporations vying against each other to produce more and bigger animals with less care at lower cost.
Locally produced foods - defined as those harvested within a 100-mile radius of one's home - have a lesser impact on the environment because of the decreased need for transportation from source to consumer.