Do urban dwellers and suburban residents have a role in preserving the family farm? You bet! We play an enormous and, to most, an unknown role in keeping local farms that produce fresh, tasty, and chemically free produce in business. So, what is this role and how can we be sure these farms will be part of our future?

First and foremost we can buy their products. These farms that add so much to our quality of life are businesses and need to remain profitable. We can insist that the stores where we shop carry local products for us to buy. Or, if they don’t, we can shop where there is more enlightened management. Why not ask your grocer where things are grown? Why not insist that local products be stocked in your store? Stores could place labels on bins to help shoppers become aware of currently available locally grown produce, and to advertise their own support of local growers. We, dear readers, together can insist on support from our local stores to maintain sustainable agriculture on our neighboring farmlands. Let’s each do our share to keep our farms producing their high quality foods.

Farmers’ markets have become wonderfully popular and are a great way to learn about local farmers and to get fresh, healthy food for our families. These markets shorten the distance between the farm and your table. They also provide a great way to participate in your community. Farmers readily adapt to changing tastes and demands. They are the first to notice changes in buying habits and to adapt what they grow to the urban palate. Alice Waters in Berkeley has taught both farmers and consumers to treasure fresh seasonal foods that not only increase our pleasure in eating but also improve and support our health. It has been exciting and truly amazing to see the changes on the farms and in the produce over the past 20 years. Get to know the growers. Visit their farms. Let them know of things you like to eat. Take the opportunities offered to you, a shopper, to be a part of the rural life.

We happily appear to be leaving the fast-food era which has left many overweight and health-compromised. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our children knew where their food was grown, how good fresh, healthy food can taste, and how they can learn to make good food choices over unhealthy ones? Trips to the farm can be eye-opening experiences for an urban child. Several organizations offer tours of farms (see page 8). What a great way for a family to spend a day and invest in the future as well. In the fall, a few Marin farmers invite children to come out to glean the last of crops—tomatoes from Janet Brown and Randy LaFranchi, greens from Warren Weber and Dennis Dierks—to donate to the St. Anthony Dining Room.

And why shouldn’t our children have fresh organic food for lunch in our schools? Don’t they deserve the best available food? Some from the agricultural and urban sectors are working hard to get schools to offer locally grown food for lunch. Each of us with children or grandchildren in urban or suburban schools could help this new idea take hold. Teachers, parents, administrators, and children all need to get behind the novel idea of having the best healthy food for our children rather than the cheapest. Let’s celebrate local farmers and give our young a healthier future.

So it turns out, dear shopper, there is a lot each of us can do. It turns out we do have an essential part to play in keeping family farms alive and well, in keeping fresh local produce in our markets, in providing healthy food for our children. We can vote with our money at the store or farmers’ market; we can vote at the polls for supportive public officials; we can vote for ballot measures that help agriculture; we can give charitable gifts to organizations that support local agriculture. We really are amazingly important to the long-term sustainability of a family farm.