Today much of the food people eat gets transported from farms that are thousands of miles away. Some people believe it would be better for the environment and the economy if people only consumed food produced by local farmers. Would the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

A major global market worth billions of dollars,

food

import and export

has

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have

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an extreme impact on both local producers and the environment. With the growing demand for cheaper yet more exotic foods, the damage

this

generates will only continue to worsen. I feel that it is our ethical duty to attempt to minimise our contribution to said damage. One need only glance at any supermarket aisle and a cornucopia of exotic goods lay before us to make any culinary delight which may take our fancy.

This

veritable endless supply of global products is made possible thanks to innovations in the processing industry which

has

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have

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allowed for mass production, shelf-life extension, and - perhaps most significantly – cheaper prices for consumers. It is a tragic fact that the lion’s share of shoppers give little regard to where their

food

has come from, or what harm it is causing. To answer

this

ever-growing call for cut-price produce, companies are turning to factory farming and the exploitation of animals and developing countries at an alarming rate. A pertinent example of

this

is the current obsession with quinoa; once a little-known foodstuff, it became the darling of the

health conscious

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health-conscious

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and big businesses nearly overnight. The pressure to increase output from farms in its native Peru and Bolivia meant that many native farmers were forced to work unimaginably long hours for very little profit, and their arable land was decimated by over-farming. We must

also

pause to consider the additional impact of factory farming – the practice of

mass rearing

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mass-rearing

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livestock for meat or dairy products – has on the environment. Livestock is one of the biggest contributors to climate change in both

production

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the production

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of greenhouse gasses

,

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and, destruction

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destruction

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the destruction

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of forests for grazing land and transportation. The combination of neglect for sustainable agriculture and the upsurge in livestock breeding will take generations for the land to recover from. So, what can we do to mitigate the damage our

consumer driven

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consumer-driven

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lifestyle is causing? The very obvious answer is that we limit our consumption of globally sourced products in favour of locally produced

food

.

This

has a variety of benefits for shoppers in that local vendors usually offer healthier, organic

food

which is free from the

longevity extending

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longevity-extending

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chemicals found in imported goods, and fresh ingredients of course taste much better than their processed counterparts. Another added plus is that by spending your money close to home, it is going directly into your local economy which will directly boost the surrounding neighbourhood and support domestic industry,

while

simultaneously reducing your carbon footprint.

It is clear that

more environmentally conscious purchases would be most advantageous, unlikely though it is consumers will completely overturn their current shopping habits. It is imperative that we encourage the consumption of locally grown

food

where possible in order to slow the environmental harm we are doing.