BUFFALO, N.Y. — Laura Colligan, the owner of Dirt Rich Farm, has known the value of locally grown food for most of her life.
“I started farming back in 2015,” she said. “As a teenager, when I was interested in cooking, I was learning how to cook with all kinds of fresh local fruits and vegetables, and it really made me think that maybe this is what I want to do with my life,”
Now she owns her own farm and grows about 40 different kinds of vegetables from arugula to zucchini.
Her favorite?
“Oh that's always such a hard question,” she said. “I really love kohlrabi.”
What You Need To Know
- Not only does locally grown food often have more nutrients, but it also keeps your dollar closer to home and helps the local economy.
- Local WNY farmers are being featured in a campaign called "Eat Local WNY," partnering with Fresh Fix and the University at Buffalo to motivate consumers to spend more of their grocery dollars on locally grown food.
- You can learn more about the campaign at eatlocalwny.org
Colligan is one of the farmers being featured in a campaign partnering with Fresh Fix and the University at Buffalo to motivate consumers to spend more of their grocery dollars on locally grown food and track their participation.
“Buffalo is very supportive of local businesses, when you think about all the restaurants that are local,” said Kristie Chamberlain, partner of Business Development for Fresh Fix. “So we want to extend that from restaurants to actually the food you eat in those restaurants.”
In hopes of leveraging that loyalty, this year is year one of the three-year campaign helping consumers to get to know those people and hopefully motivate them to show their support to local farms.
“I thought this was a great opportunity to tell the community about all the work that local farmers do and all the advantages to eating local,” said Colligan.
“We learned from [the COVID-19 pandemic] that our supply chain is messed up. It’s a little bit scary when there’s a crisis and we can’t get the food that we need. And so having a strong, resilient food system is really going to help protect us from future shortages,” said Chamberlain.
And asking consumers to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.
“A lot of people say they support local because they buy local food in grocery stores but we want to go a step further,” Chamberlain said.
The pledge asks consumers to spend 10% of their total food dollars on local food. UB researchers will be collecting that data to build a case in support of widening options for local food.
“Farmers are usually getting pennies on the dollar. What you’re paying at the grocery store, farmers are getting a tiny proportion of,” Colligan said. “When I sell local produce, I am getting all or almost all of the consumers food dollar and that allows me to make a living.”
Helping farmers like Colligan help their community.
“Farmers need people reliably buying their food day in and day out not just when people are in crisis, so we’ll still be here when the next crisis happens,” Colligan said.
