How To Fix America!

As the economy gets worse, oil resources become more scarce, and food quality scare after scare pops up, eating locally makes more and more sense. Dubbed “locavores” the movement is gaining momentum across the United States. The main goal is to get people to only eat food (or the majority of it,) that is grown and produced within a certain distance of their location. 100-200 miles is typical depending on how close a city center is to rural farms already.

This movement not only has a lot in common with the movement to grow urban gardens, but the buy locally movements too. All three movements have a lot of good benefits that far outweigh bad ones so it makes sense to join in. In addition, the local food source movement is actively trying to reduce the use of chemicals and pesticides on food by using native and natural anti-pest remedies.

Advantages of Local Food Sources
1.) Less fuel used to produce
2.) Less fuel used to ship
3.) Less preservatives
4.) Beautification of Urban landscapes
5.) Wildlife Preservation
6.) More choices in heirloom varieties
7.) Increase in flavor of foods
8.) Rain Water run off reduction
9.) Highly reduced chance of contamination (e coli , salmonella)

Disadvantages of Local Food Sources
1.) Less Seasonal Variety
2.) Slight increase in food costs (when purchased from farmers market)
3.) Little or no fresh supplies during non-growing months
4.) Weeding and other garden chores
5.) Not enough room to have a garden
6.) Possible increase in fuel usage due to decentralized distribution systems
7.) Impact on large corporate farms
8.) Impact on trade deficits and the global economy
9.) Reduced exotic and non-native varieties

Based on the above advantages and disadvantages my proposal is quite simple. 25-50% of the food product (I’d actually prefer to make that ALL products,) sold in a store must originate within 200 miles of the place they’re sold. The advantages of this for everyone, from increased health benefits to reduction in environmental pollutants out weighs the initial economic costs that this would cause. If food was grown right in urban areas where people are living and working, the health benefits alone would help reduce Obama’s Health Care costs. People would be healthier as they don’t ingest as many chemicals. The possibility of seeing and touching green growing plants would help reduce stress.

Reduced pollution from less rain water run-off and the ability to reuse grey and dirty waters if managed properly would have a huge impact on the environment alone. Add in reduced pesticide and chemical use, and an increase in bee and other beneficial insect (and their predators) population, it’s just possible that we would have a very good chance of minimizing our impact on the planet in general too.

What do you think would be the advantages and disadvantages of such a mandatory law?