Want to Support Local Food? Begin at the Source

Local food.  Trendy buzzwords for a lot of us.  Don't we buy from farmer's markets, patronize farm-to-table restaurants and read every label at the supermarket?   Heck, some of us even grow our own food, even if it's just a couple of tomato or pepper plants in pots.  Eating local food means supporting our community and helping our economy.  It makes us feel healthier, more environmentally conscious and, frankly, smarter.  As we pat ourselves on the backs for all we do to promote the local food movement, perhaps we need to look at another way we can help support the very foundation of local food.  Before you buy plants, seeds or onion sets this season, consider where you shop.

Have you visited a local feed and seed store lately?  I don't mean a big box store where rows of shopping carts greet you at the entrance, a disembodied voice from above instructs an employee to assist a customer and cashiers grumpily bemoan the fact that it is break time and no one has appeared to offer relief.  No, I mean a real, honest-to-goodness local store where the fragrance of roasted or boiled peanuts mixes with the smells of oiled tools, leather goods, baby chicks and farm soil, loosened from thousands of work boots as they tread over well-worn floors, to create an aroma that is distinctive to these businesses.  The kind of place where you find Rosebud salve and Mason jars of heirloom seeds on the shelves and farmers and gardeners linger on porches to talk with friends, celebrate a good harvest or bemoan crop loss.  It's a place where farmer's almanacs are reverently sold and if you shop close to the end of a year, you are likely to receive a free lunar calendar with the store's name imprinted.  If you have never been to a real local feed and seed store, make plans to do so as soon as possible.

Weigh and purchase heirloom seeds at local feed & seed stores

Department stores offer hundreds of imported goods and the convenience of shopping for everything from shovels to coffee to underwear, but they have decimated many local seed businesses.  Although some truly local stores no longer exist, it is still possible to locate quaint, well-stocked shops where chances are good the owners inherited the business from a previous generation or two, along with a wealth of priceless knowledge.  Don't be surprised when cashiers answer puzzling gardening questions off the top of their heads and cheerfully offer advice with a smile, workers offer to help load your purchases and no one mentions break time.

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Local farmers relax on the front porch of Johnson's Milling, in Alexander County

Before you run to a department store to pick up a new gardening tool, replace those worn gloves or buy packets of vegetable seeds, plan to visit a local feed and seed store.  Allow plenty of time to examine the shelves, chat with the store owner or other customers and perhaps even snack on some boiled or roasted peanuts.  

Oh, and don't forget to breathe.  It's smart to enjoy the unique aroma of a place that truly supports local food.