TIL that my flower sourcing choice gets flak from the 'buy local' crowd

I order from certified eco-farms overseas since their clean growing methods beat local spots that pump flowers with chemicals and heat.

3 comments

3 Comments

haydenbutler2mo ago

Guess we're supposed to ignore the giant cloud of pesticide drift because it came from a neighbor's farm... Local doesn't automatically mean clean, just geographically convenient. The whole thing is pretty ironic when you think about it.

oscarwilson2mo ago

Yeah, and sometimes "local" just means the chemicals are getting dumped into a watershed near you instead of far away. If a local grower is using harsh pesticides, that runoff is going into your local environment. The certified overseas farm might actually have stricter rules on what they can put into their own soil and water.

the_wesley2mo ago

That's such a good point from @oscarwilson and it fits a bigger thing I see all the time, where people just go with the simple label without looking into what it really means. Like "local" feels good and close to home, so we assume it's automatically the better choice in every way. But you're right, a farm down the road could be way messier with chemicals than some regulated place thousands of miles away. Makes you question all those easy assumptions.