ArcaMax

Spring is filled with dreams of locally grown food. Last weekend, my family volunteered for our local community garden, helping get beds ready and putting tomato and pepper plants in the ground. At home, we planted zinnias and sunflowers. My family also signed up for shares of Community Supported Agriculture from our local farmer.

I love this time of year. Getting our hands in dirt reminds us where our food comes from and that we need to take care of the Earth. Our food is only as good as the soil we grow it in, and to have healthy soil, we must treat the Earth well in everything we do. Gardening also reminds us that we have more power in this food system than we realize.

During World War II, Americans were encouraged to turn their property into miniature farms. According to the National WWII Museum, 42% of all produce grown in 1943 came from victory gardens. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed in a fireside chat that "victory gardens are of direct benefit in helping relieve manpower, transportation and living costs as well as the food problem."

Victory gardens remain an iconic image of life on the homefront during the war. The United States is in a different kind of political upheaval now. And once again, gardening is meaningful. This time it feels more like resistance. Growing a garden means that for the items you can grow at home, you don't have to participate in the tariff-induced price wars at the grocery store. And if you don't want to garden, signing up for CSA shares with your local farmer is another way to bypass the food price chaos. And it's not just for fruits and vegetables. If you're a meat-eater, your local farmer will also sell you a side of beef, chicken and eggs.

It's nice to know where your food comes from, and it's doubly nice to meet your local farmers and support their work. Every time you visit the farmers market and build your weekly meals around what's locally available, you cut back on pollution by cutting back on transportation emissions, energy for refrigeration and plastic packaging. You support sustainable agriculture since local, small-scale farming is more likely to grow organic produce and more diverse crops. Large industrial monoculture farms deplete soil nutrients and lean on chemical pesticide and fertilizer use, while reducing biodiversity and requiring high irrigation. None of this is good for our local ecosystems.

Also, when you support your local farmers, you give them a fighting chance. Family farms are struggling while corporate farms get 75% of government subsidies, and the commodity crops they grow -- such as corn -- are taking over our diets.

When you support local agriculture, your food is actually more nutritious and often more flavorful. Fruits and vegetables begin to lose nutrients as soon as they are harvested. If you have to wait for your food to be shipped to you from across the country or continent, it may have lost a significant portion of its nutritional value. Local farmers harvest food at its peak ripeness and sell it to you shortly thereafter. If you're going to eat your vegetables, it isn't better to make sure that you are fueling your body with the freshest and most nutrient-dense products available?

Supporting your community farmers also means you are directly contributing to the economic stability and growth of your community. You keep money in your community, support a local business and even generate more local jobs. We may live in a more global society, but our local infrastructure matters. This especially matters for our local food systems. I like knowing where my food comes from and that it was harvested ethically, especially when it comes to livestock. I want farm animals to live a great life and just have one bad day before it ends up on my plate.

I want my vegetables to be grown in nutrient-rich soil without loads of chemicals.

Maybe it starts small with just a few tomato plants, a weekly CSA box or a Saturday morning at the farmers market. But those choices add up. They root us in a place, in a season, in a set of relationships that feel more secure than whatever chaos is playing out on the national stage. We may not be able to control tariffs or global supply chains, but we can decide how we nourish our families and what kind of food system we participate in. In that sense, tending a garden or supporting a local farmer isn't just about what's on our plates. It's a quiet, grounded way of choosing the kind of world we want to grow.

Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Also, stay in the loop by signing up for her weekly newsletter at WriterBonnie.com. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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