Local Food Gets Easier to Buy

For people who see the benefits of local food – and they are many, from fresher taste in the mouth to more beautiful landscapes in the neighborhood – life keeps getting better. Whether it's from the backyard or the supermarket, locally grown food is easier to find than at any point since the food industry started consolidating and industrializing in the first place.

Inspired by Michelle Obama's White House garden (which reaped a bounty of 1,600 pounds of produce in 2010, a 60% increase over its harvest the first year) more and more homeowners dug in and started backyard gardens. The number of farmers' markets in the United States increased 16% in 2010, according to one Department of Agriculture tally. And national grocery chains – most notably Walmart – stocked more locally produced foods. in the case of the world's largest retailer, Walmart doubled down on a two-year-old local food initiative, and pledged to make 9% of its produce come from in-state sources by 2015.