Local Foods Directory

Enjoy fresh local produce and support local agriculture in and around Boxborough.

The goal of the Local Foods Directory is to help residents of Boxborough, Harvard, and neighboring towns locate and patronize local farms and food producers.

Click here to go to the Local Foods Directory.

Background

At the same time that we enjoy an abundant and varied food supply, we are diminishing the resources that will ensure that supply for the future. In Massachusetts most of our food comes from large national and international agricultural enterprises. This is made possible by cheap energy sources for fertilizer, farm machinery and transportation. As these energy sources decline and become increasingly expensive, we will once again depend more on locally produced food. However, the same forces that have encouraged imported produce have decimated the number of local farms.

Local farms have been unable to compete with the wholesale prices of large agribusiness farms found in more temperate parts of the country or from the cheap land and labor in far away places. For example, our region is known for its apple orchards and fine eating apples, but we are also familiar with local apple juice and cider. As of 2003, nearly half the apple juice sold worldwide originated in China (Source: USDA). Local orchards in Littleton, Stow, and Harvard, once considered the "Apple Capital of the Country", now must compete with the lowest cost producers from Argentina and China.

Recent news about the safety of imported foodstuffs is nothing new. Even for apple juice products, a simple search will reveal FDA warnings about undeclared sweeteners such as inulin or high fructose corn syrup. In 2006 a warning described mycotoxins found in juice from Argentina. This is scary stuff.

The rise of suburban life, made possible by an automobile society, created enormous economic incentive to sell farmland for residential development. We are now at a point in Massachusetts where the available arable land would feed only 5% of the population. We cannot afford to lose a single additional farm.

Boxborough Local believes that the best way to preserve our rich, but rapidly diminishing, agricultural heritage is to help local farms be profitable. Many of us want to support our local farms, but don't know how. Buying from local farm stands, small independent producers, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms is enough to make many of our remaining small farms economically viable.

Background: See My Saudi Arabian Breakfast, by Chad Heeter, and
Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply, by Richard Heinberg.