> In my case, even tomatoes are often from a different country and then we export our own tomatoes to other countries too.
This can make a lot of sense as the seasons shift. Eating local is only efficient and sustainable if you're sticking to what's in season or keeps well. Long term refrigerated storage, water-sourcing and indoor growing to extend seasons can outweigh the costs of freighting.
In Canada you can find domestic bananas, but I can't imagine replicating the necessary growing conditions with woodfired greenhouses is better than freighting from the tropics (but I'll get some sparingly): https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/meet-the-farmers-growing-banan...
Wow, that’s cool! I checked for The Netherlands aswell and it turns out we’re also growing our own bananas [0] with the first harvest being two years ago! It seems to be a research initiative to find new ways to cultivate bananas that are not susceptible to soil molds.
> Eating local is only efficient and sustainable if you're sticking to what's in season or keeps well. Long term refrigerated storage, water-sourcing and indoor growing to extend seasons can outweigh the costs of freighting.
Agreed! I think that’s why it’s so hard to just call farmers markets inefficient, though. Atleast, without research into how efficient they are. There’s so many arguments that can make it sound logical that they’re either more or less efficient than a grocery store. It could go either way.
[0]: https://nederbanaan.nl/ (I hate what they’re doing with their font. Double letters being some extremely elongated version of the single letter?)
This can make a lot of sense as the seasons shift. Eating local is only efficient and sustainable if you're sticking to what's in season or keeps well. Long term refrigerated storage, water-sourcing and indoor growing to extend seasons can outweigh the costs of freighting.
In Canada you can find domestic bananas, but I can't imagine replicating the necessary growing conditions with woodfired greenhouses is better than freighting from the tropics (but I'll get some sparingly): https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/meet-the-farmers-growing-banan...