What you can bring to the table:
10 Reasons to buy organic, local & sustainable (excerpt borrowed from Whole Foods Market):
1. Protect future generations: Children receive four times more exposure than adults to cancer causing pesticides in food.
2. Prevent soil erosion: Three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from crop lands in the U.S. each year, much of it due to conventional farming practices, which often ignore the health of the soil.
3. Protect water quality: The EPA estimates that pesticides pollute the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country’s population.
4. Keep chemicals off your plate: Pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans.
5. Protect farm worker health: Pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans.
6. Save energy: More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the U.S.
7. Help small farmers: Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small, independently-owned and operated family farms. It’s important to know where your food comes from, and shake the hand that feeds you!
8. Support a true economy: Organic foods might seem expensive, however, your tax dollars pay for hazardous waste clean up and environmental damage caused by conventional farming.
9. Promote biodiversity: Planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, but the lack of natural diversity of plant life has negatively affected soil quality.
10. Flavor & nourishment: Organic farming starts with nourishment of the soil, producing nourishing plants. Please feel free to conduct your own taste tests to see for yourself!
We, at the Farmhouse, believe in using seasonal, organic, sustainable, local, and farm-to-table ingredients whenever possible!