Belly previously said:

Commentary: Our food shouldn't travel more than we do

Published on Thursday, April 22, 2010 Email To Friend Print Version

By Maura Curley

Bite into a piece of fruit and think about its origin. What about tonight’s dinner?

You might realize that tomatoes don’t grow wrapped in cellophane. But do you have a clue about the nature of your other vegetables, fruit, bread, fish, and especially meat?

Food shouldn’t travel more than we do. Yet most of it takes a circuitous and sometimes scary route to our table.

Organic markets, local farms and movies like Food Inc. have done a lot to raise our awareness that locally grown tastes better and is a lot safer.

Still it’s more novelty that the norm.

We’re still stuck on the stuff on the supermarket shelves with additives and chemicals we can’t pronounce let alone digest.

A while back I came across an in flight magazine with a story, which focused on a growing number of stateside committed to eating only foods produced within their region. This movement gained momentum from Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, written by Professor Gary Paul. The book chronicled Paul’s yearlong quest to eat only foods produced within a 200 - mile radius of his home in Arizona’s Sonoran desert.

The statistics for trekking food across the country, let alone from the mainland to the Caribbean could be enough make you lose your appetite.

Richard Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University has calculated that produce travels an average of 1,500 miles in three days to reach his state. This continent wide distribution system for food uses many times the fossil fuel and emits much more carbon dioxide than a locally food based system.

Ironically, here in this tropical climate we import much of what we consume.

Why can we utilize more island-grown?

St Croix, the largest of the Virgin Islands, has deep agricultural roots. Puerto Rico also has rich farmlands. Yet the island imports almost 90 percent of its food, leaving farmers to look for markets for what they grow. Grenada produces a golden crop of spices, especially nutmeg, which it exports around the world. More green neighbors like the Dominican Republic, Dominica, and St. Lucia could keep islanders – and even a healthy tourist population well fed.

Why can’t we strive to create a food culture that is at least 85 percent Caribbean grown?

Does it really make any sense to be dependent upon shipping thousands of tons of food from the mainland?

Why can’t we fund and patronize more farmers and educate more people about agriculture? Why can’t we create more specialties made in the Caribbean food products with our abundance of coconuts, mangos and lesser-known delicacies like soursop, and tamarind?

Locally grown food is better for our bodies and the Caribbean economy. It would increase tourism too.

Let’s eat well beginning this Earth Day, and encourage our visitors to experience local fruits, roots, breads, poultry and meat -- all preservative free in ‘paradise.’

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/pr/pr.php?news_id=22748&start=0&category_id=21

Atabey previously said:

Agreed. Major problems exist in Puerto Rico, as Blutarsky states, mainly because of high wages relative to the DR and other Central American states. You have to pay, at a minimum over 7 dollars per hour wages in PR. This is not possible in our highly competitive world environment. The DR is making good progress and may soon compete with Costa Rica and others in the export market. I know that in PR many agricultural products come from Central America, especially Costa Rica. The DR should have been PR's main export base but for our lack of political and economic maturity during the Post 1966 period.

Blutarsky previously said:


It practically all comes via Miami so can you imagine how much fresher and how much more shelf life our produce would have if we could get it off the island ...... Quality control and corruption is another major problem for the DR

Blutarsky previously said:

every island all the way to Trinidad can benefit from buying our produce all the hotels on every island import high quality produce and Venezuela is in the Crapper and needs it as well Cuba at this moment because of the commies imports an incredible amount of food .....We need to stop subsidizing onions and potatoes and switch to exportable cash crops .. ....But quality control and infrastructure need upgrading