Published: 8/18/2020 10:28:52 AM
August is “New Hampshire Eat Local Month” It’s a 31-day occasion worth observing. (Not to be confused with “eat locals.”)
When you purchase local food, the benefits ripple through the community, helping the farms and businesses that support them.
When you buy Huckin’s Farm (New Hampton) raw milk, yogurt, or cheese from, you’ll enjoy easily digestible dairy high in protein and butterfat. You’ll have delicious and beneficial A2 dairy products, and owner Maddy Huckins will have the resources to buy non-GMO feed for her Jersey and Guernsey cows.
Buy maple syrup or candy from Windswept Farm in Loudon, for an alternative to highly processed sugar and corn syrup, and you’ll give owners Larry and Melissa Moore a reason to tap their trees.
Buy meat from Miles Smith Farm, and you will help us pay Howard Pearl and Bob McWhinney for hay, Dr. Peck for doctoring our herd, and Hiltop Feeds (Loudon) for providing chicken feed. You’ll also support Brookside Pizza in Loudon where we get delicious pizza; and Glenn’s Auto Service in Belmont, where we fix our trucks. Money spent here stays here, circulating and re-circulating.
Buying local food keeps New Hampshire fields mowed, cows fed, and sap processed. It’s a community thing. Buying from your local farmer helps the entire community and preserves the rural character of our state. What happens when a farm isn’t financially viable? Development.
Local farms also provide food security when food produced from “away” disappears. Remember when the pandemic hit, and food trucked in from the Midwest was gone from grocery store shelves? Local farms filled the gap. We’re still here, but now that the supermarkets are restocked, will consumers return to old habits? If you shop locally one day a week, you’ll get delicious food and help a local farm or two survive. We are in this together; we need you as much as you need us.
If you already buy locally raised food, you are a local-farm hero. Your taste buds are already addicted to deliciousness of raw milk, the tangy sweetness of maple lemonade, the freshness of local eggs, and the tenderness of grass-fed steak. Thank you for supporting local farmers.
(Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, milessmithfarm.com, where she raises and sells pastured pork, lamb, eggs and grassfed beef. She can be reached at cas@milessmithfarm.com.)
0 Response to "Eat Local - Concord Monitor"
Post a Comment