Think Global, Buy Local: A New Study Looks At The Impact Of Buying Local Produce On Local Economies

The motto ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ has long been a guiding tenet of the sustainable food movement. But does acting locally really make a difference and if so, what kind of difference? That’s just what a team of economists set out to explore in the study Linkages Between Community-Focused Agriculture, Farm Sales, and Regional Growth, published in Economic Development Quarterly (2014). Their results revealed that yes, direct farm-to-customer-sales in the form of farmer’s markets and farm visits do make a difference – but what kind of difference depends where the farms are located and on how well local communities have built up an supply chain to support this kind of local buying.

The researchers asked two key questions: First, how are community-oriented farms contributing to agricultural and regional growth? Second, given the importance of major growers and the fact that 75 percent of all agricultural output in the United States is produced by less than six percent of all U.S. farms, just how important is agriculture in the economic growth regionally and nationally?