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Health & Fitness

Buy Local

UConn Extension has partnered with CitySeed of New Haven and its BuyCTGrown.com project in an effort to capture more of Connecticut residents’ food expenditures on locally grown products. Currently, the average Connecticut consumer spends 2.5% of their total grocery bill on locally grown. This new joint initiative, called the CT 10% Campaign, hopes to raise individual local purchases up to 10%. Connecticut residents interested in signing onto the campaign can go to buyctgrown.com and take the pledge.

“The Connecticut 10% Campaign will put a spotlight on and provide a standardized approach to collecting information about how much Connecticut residents are spending on locally grown products,” says Jiff Martin, UConn Extension’s Sustainability Director. UConn Extension is adopting an online tracking program developed by North Carolina Extension where it has successfully tracked local purchases in North Carolina for 3 years, for a total of $53 million dollars.

The time for this is NOW. With high fuel prices, landfills at capacity, water shortages in regions of the country and consumer concerns about food safety and processing, there are many reasons to buy locally grown products – not least of all the freshness and flavor! The average distance that food travels from farm to consumer is 1,500 miles. The CT 10% Campaign aims to encourage consumers to choose food and garden goods that travel less than 100 miles. By doing so, the 10% CT Campaign will help build the Connecticut local food economy, improve the health of Connecticut consumers and families, impact Connecticut jobs in farming, food services and related industries and to create a sustainable food system in Connecticut.

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CitySeed’s Executive Director, Nicole Berube, who administers the BuyCTGrown.com program says, “This CT 10% Campaign aims to further the existing CT Department of Agriculture’s efforts to promote local agriculture by directing consumers to look for their CT Grown logo and ask for local wherever they shop. By leveraging resources together, we can do much more to encourage local purchasing!”

Theresa Freund, owner of Freund’s Farm Market in East Canaan addresses the value of this campaign on her small, local business, “What great motivation for our customers and CT consumers to find and buy local. Even for my greenhouse customers that are purchasing our homegrown tomato plants or squash plants to grow in their own garden, it still meets the 10% pledge”.

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UConn Extension and CitySeed are the recipients of USDA Specialty Crop Block Grants (SCBG), awarded and administered by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and intended to promote and increase specialty crop production and sales in the state of Connecticut. The USDA defines specialty crops as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture.

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