Everyone's got to eat, but where's the best place to buy your food?  It's important to not only buy food that's good for you, but also food that was grown, packaged and shipped in a way that is not harmful to the environment.  Most people don't think twice about going to the supermarket to pick up ingredients for that night's dinner, but you should. Some things to keep in mind when purchasing food is where was it grown, is it organic, what kind of packaging is used, and how expensive is it? 

Farmers markets are an excellent alternative to supermarkets because of their small impact on the environment.  The food sold at farmers markets is locally grown and a lot of the time sold at the farmers market by people who own or work at the farm.  Consuming locally grown produce is a smart choice because it is the freshest option.  If the food is grown nearby that means the time spent from being picked to being sold to you is minimal.  In supermarkets produce is shipped from all over the world, so the produce could be many days old.  Locally grown produce is also a smart choice because it has a smaller carbon footprint with its shipping.  Produce from local farms is put in a truck and driven a few miles to the farmers market where as supermarket produce is flown from halfway across the world sometimes.  According to the Center for Sustainable Agriculture the average fresh food item on a dinner table travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate.  Buying local eliminates a lot of the carbon emitted for transportation. 

Local farms that participate in farmers markets are on a smaller scale than the large super-farms that produce for major chain grocery stores.  Smaller farms use less intensive farming practices that are less harmful on the environment than the large farms.  Less intensive practices means they will rotate crops so that the land doesn't become degraded and useless and there is less pesticide and herbicide use. 

A large portion of produce sold at farmers markets is organic as opposed the tiny section for organics at supermarkets.  Eating organic stops the ingestion of toxic chemicals in pesticides and controversial GMOs.  Growing organic is healthier for the environment too.  Pesticide runoff is especially damaging when it leaches into rivers and other bodies of water and causes dead zones, like in the Gulf of Mexico, where there is a lack of oxygen and organisms can't survive.

In supermarkets you will find produce packaged in plastics, but the produce at farmers markets is not packaged which saves on resources.  A lot of the time farmers markets won't even offer you a bag for your purchases, it is expected that you bring your own.  At supermarkets people put every different piece of produce purchased in a plastic bag.  Most of those plastic bags then end up in the garbage.

Many people have the misconception that farmers markets are more expensive than supermarkets, but this is not true.  Farmers markets most often have comparable, if not cheaper prices than supermarkets.  If you go to the farmers market right before closing you can get even better prices because they are willing to sell the produce just to get rid of it.

Farmers markets are not available to go to at all times, making them less convenient, but overall the freshness and eco-friendliness of farmers markets make them the top choice for a place to purchase your food.  Because they are set up only temporarily they also save on the resources needed for building and keeping a store. An extra perk of shopping at a farmers market is that there is far less temptation from processed unhealthy foods than at a grocery store.

A few helpful resources:

Farmersmarket.com

The US Dept of Agriculture

Watch this helpful video with tips on how to shop at a farmers market: