The Impact of Buying Local

The Impact of Buying Local

Co-Authored by: Marissa Bryant

Can you remember life before Walmart and Amazon took over the world. For those of you born before 1990, reminisce with me for a moment. I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons and as soon as the Smurfs went off Granny was rushing me to get my jacket on so we could do here shopping for Sunday dinner.  We would walk the two blocks to her credit union, where the teller would always give me a Dum Dum sucker. Then we would catch a bus to Hyde Park Produce Market. This is where Granny got most of the things she needed to prepare her meal, except the meat. For that we would walk around the corner to her favorite butcher. She loved his meat because he got it fresh 3 times a week from a small farm about 20 miles away. On our way home she would let me stop in the neighborhood comic book store where I would read the latest X-Men and buy a pack of baseball cards in hopes of getting a Ken Griffey Jr.  or Bo Jackson.

This is how I remember shopping as a kid, and now more than ever the world would benefit from a return to when America was great. I’m not talking about Trump’s Great America where foreigners are not desirable and Blacks needed to stay in their place. I am talking about the America where Main St. was as important as WallStreet. The ability to shop locally had a huge impact on our society and the environment. Supporting local businesses was the life force of the middle class and insured that the dollars we spent benefited our community. The ability to get the things we need without having to drive across town reduced our carbon footprint. Additionally, buying things that are grown or produced locally provides local jobs and helps to repair and restore the earth.

Every modern politician panders to the middle class by promising to “spear head initiatives that bolster small business, the backbone of our economy blah, blah, blah…” Their mouths say what our country desperately needs, but their hearts are with the major corporations that fill their coffers. The government has no real intentions of fixing the middle class. Their current policies make the rich richer and drive everyone else into poverty. This is why we need to step in and support the business on the corner. Gus, the local barber, makes $25 for each haircut which gives him a livable wage. His taxes support local schools and community improvement products. Gus is your neighbor so when Jr. is getting ready for prom he offers to cut his hair for free. Jenny works across town at The Super Sport’s Cuts in the strip mall. She charges 35$ for a cut but only earns 7.50$ plus tip. She supplements her income with public assistance that other taxpayers pay for, and Super Sport’s Cuts uses every corporate loophole to make sure they pay no taxes. Are you beginning  to connect the dots and get the picture?

But supporting local business is not just about rebuilding the middle class and supporting the local economy, it also gives us an opportunity to take some personal responsibility and begin the process of reducing our own carbon footprint. Buying local means you're driving shorter distances and reducing carbon emissions. You're not ordering from an Amazon warehouse half a state away, so your purchase does not have to be trucked anywhere. If you want to take it a step further you put on your fitbit and get another 3000 steps in by walking.

The picture really starts to become clear when you buy goods that are produced locally. I always like to use the local farm as my example for this because it makes a huge economic and ecologic impact. The local farmer plants literally tons of plants that sequester all those nasty carbon emissions we produced when we drove down the street so Gus could cut our hair. After he harvests his crops all the parts of the plant he can't use he composts which helps rebuild our depleted topsoil. He does not buy synthetic  fertilizer produced in China, he gets the manure from the dairy farm next door. He hires the neighborhood teens and teaches them valuable skills that they can use for a lifetime. Buying his produce is fresher and tastes better because it's not picked 4 weeks early so that it has time to ripen while it is shipped here from Venezuela.  And of course his tax dollars paid to fix that pothole on 3rd st.

As you can see, buying local benefits the whole community. Our food is fresher, our jobs stay in our community along with our dollars, and we do a small part to help preserve our planet. It now becomes our duty as informed citizens to step up and do what our government will not.  The 5$ you saved at walmart cost 10 local manufacturing jobs and replaced it with one that does not pay a livable wage. So do your part and look around your neighborhood for small businesses that offer goods and services that you frequently use.