You may love growing your own food, but you might not grow enough to feed your entire family. Here’s why you should consider supplementing what your garden produces with foods from your local community.

Of course our main topic here is gardening, and what could be more local than food from your own backyard?

However, the truth of the matter is that many people simply don’t have the space or time to grow all of their own food. Even gardeners with large gardens rarely produce all of the food their family needs for the year.

Whether you don’t have the space to grow everything you need, or simply don’t want to, we feel it is important to get as much of your food as possible from local sources.

Farmers markets and CSAs are available in most urban and suburban areas, so you can find high quality food (often at better prices than at the supermarket), and support your local community and ecosystem at the same time.

Here are 10 reasons why it’s so important to eat local:

1. Supports Local Farms: Buying local keeps local farms healthy and creates local jobs…
2. Boosts Local Economy: Food dollars spent at local farms and food producers stay in the local economy….
3. Less Travel: Local food travels much less distance to market than typical fresh or processed grocery store foods, therefore using less fuel and generating less greenhouse gases.
4. Less Waste: Because of the shorter distribution chains for local foods, less food is wasted in distribution, warehousing, and merchandising.
5. More Freshness: Local food is fresher, healthier and tastes better, because it spends less time in transit from farm to plate, and therefore loses fewer nutrients and incurs less spoilage.
6. New and Better Flavors in Each Season:…
7. Good for the Gene Pool and the Soil: Local food encourages diversification of local agriculture which preserves genetic diversity and reduces the reliance on monoculture….
8. Attracts Tourists: Local foods promote agri-tourism….
9. Preserves Open Space: Buying local food helps local farms survive and thrive, keeping land from being redeveloped into suburban sprawl.
10. Builds More Connected Communities: Local foods create more vibrant communities by connecting people with the farmers and food producers who bring them healthy local foods….

Learn more at TheGrowNetwork.com…