Why Support Small, Local and Organic Producers?

Au Dela is committed to using small, local and organic producers for a variety of reasons.  In addition to personal health concerns, we feel very strongly about building our business in a way that takes seriously our responsibility to the environment and to future generations.  We have also found that organic food just tastes better.

Food grown according to organic principles is untouched by harmful and potentially carcinogenic herbicides and pesticides.  Organic agriculture also serves to improve the health of the soil and the ecosystem in which crops and livestock are raised and which significantly benefits crops.  Organic agriculture’s emphasis on self-sustaining soil health also ensures that farmers will be able to plant the land for generations to come. 

Conversely, conventional agriculture must add synthetic fertilizers (created by combining vast quantities of nitrogen with a fossil fuel, often natural gas) to the soil in order to plant in soil that has been depleted of its nutrients and micro-organisms by lack of crop rotation and by not leaving fields fallow to replenish depleted nutrients.  Such use of synthetic fertilizers leaves the plants deficient in certain micro-organisms which makes them more vulnerable to pests and results in the farmer dousing his crop with herbicides and pesticides.  This method of agriculture is not sustainable over the long run and requires the use of harmful chemicals and nonrenewable petroleum energy (in the form of fertilizers) to continue.

In addition to the benefits to our health and soil, by making decisions to steadily and gradually reduce our direct and indirect energy consumption, we can forestall the imminent climate crisis due to our greenhouse gas emissions.  For example, choosing to support organic producers reduces overall energy consumption because they swear off the use of petro-based fertilizers and pesticides.  In addition, if that organic producer is also local, there is no need to expend large amounts of gasoline to transport their produce to us from across the globe.

As for our commitment to small family farms and producers, we feel that the smaller family farms have been the guiding light for organic and environmentally responsible practices throughout the last several decades and beyond even when it hasn’t been popular or profitable to do so.  We would like to support these visionaries whenever possible.

Though ideally we strive to support producers that are simultaneously small, local and organic, we understand that we live in a global economy.  Where the choice for a particular ingredient is between a local conventional farmer and an organic farmer in Chile, we will try to support the producer that has a lower environmental footprint.  Sometimes a flight for strawberries from Chile uses less energy than a conventional strawberry farmer in Virginia who relies on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

For more information please read:

Sustainable vs Industrial: a Comparison

Chews Wisely, Local or organic?  It's a false choice