Feb. 6, 2007
Sims encourages local farmers, chefs to work together for better health, environment, economy
Saying that buying food grown locally is good for the health of people, the environment and the economy, King County Executive Ron Sims today encouraged local farmers and restaurant chefs to continue strengthening their bonds.
"We all benefit from thriving rural lands, whether we are the farmer who grows crops, the chef who buys the farmer's products, or the customer who enjoys a great meal made with locally grown ingredients," Sims said at the second-annual "Farmer Chef Connection Conference," held today at The Mountaineers' clubhouse in Seattle.
"Farmland is saved when a chef supports local farmers, because the grower is making a living from agricultural products and is less likely to convert the farm for other uses," he said. "It also consumes less energy and creates less pollution than trucking food from thousands of miles from corporate farms.'
The Farmer-Chef Conference helps foster collaboration and direct marketing opportunities for local farmers, ranchers, chefs and retailers who are committed to expanding and strengthening local and seasonal food networks.
Sims told the sold-out crowd that in 1940 the average U.S. farm produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy used. Today 10 calories of fossil energy are used for every one calorie of food produced. It takes 20,000 calories of energy to produce the average 2,000 calories food the average American eats every day.
"We can reduce this high energy use by encouraging the consumption of foods grown locally, within a couple of hundred miles from where we live, instead of the current average of 1,500 miles," Sims said. "Local restaurants that purchase local foods help reduce energy consumption and our dependence on oil, since it takes less fuel for a local farmer to deliver product locally."
"If half of the two million households in Washington state purchased 10 percent of their food locally, the reduction in ‘food miles' could save 93 million gallons of fuel per year," he said. "Put another way, just a small change toward local purchases could eliminate 930,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
Sims helped launch the Puget Sound Fresh program in 1998 to encourage consumers, wholesalers, retailers and restaurants to seek out and purchase locally grown products.
King County 's Farmland Preservation Program was the first voter-approved measure in the nation to protect agriculture in a metropolitan area. More than 13,000 acres have been protected under the program, which was approved in 1979.
More information about agriculture in King County is available at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/topics/agri/agtopic.htm.