The Meaning of Local

It is the mission of Local Roots Co-op to encourage us all to serve our world by serving our neighbor. A means by which we attempt to do so is by giving preference to local goods and services rather than those of a more remote origin. The question inevitably arises: what is local? Does this mean being sentenced to a purely seasonal diet? Does it mean giving up bananas, oranges and coffee?

The principle of giving preference to local goods and services must always be understood with respect to our duty to our neighbor. As such, being local is both a matter of relationship and of distance. Whether we like it or not, we are our brothers’ keepers. When we purchase a good or service from someone who is in our community, we give the gift of livelihood. If we do no more than look to our neighbor for the satisfaction of our needs and desires, and we will have done a world of good to the people of our community. If we neglect this duty, we inflict harm on our neighbor, our community and the world of which it is a part.

What happens if the good or service is not available in our own community, but is supplied by someone in the neighboring community? The person in the neighboring community, being the person nearest to us who is able to fulfill our need, is in that respect and by that relationship local, our neighbor, one to whom we have a duty to support. If all or even some of us practiced this principle, it could envelop the Earth. We will have served the world by serving our neighbor. If, on the other hand, we strive to serve some part of the remote world scene while we neglect our neighbor, we may in our zeal do harm in both places. Wherever we may be, we will find ourselves uniquely placed in proximity to people with whom we have an opportunity to gain an intimate knowledge of; a knowledge of their hopes, of their aspirations, and of their needs. These are the people who we are uniquely called upon to serve.

Now take the instance of a farmer that serves our needs 9 months out of the year. In the other three months, there is no disservice to that farmer in our seeking out produce from a farm farther away, because the goods we are looking for are not available from that farmer. This same principle applies to items that we commonly have need of that are not produced locally, like bananas, oranges or coffee. There may be a relatively local distributor of these items that we could support, and following this principle it would be our duty to do so.

It must be kept in mind that this principle implies no disservice or dislike of those people or companies who are non-local. On the contrary, we are simply practicing the most effective means that we have available to render service to them through our whole hearted service to our neighbor. And so if we find a visitor in our midst, as we so often do in our town, he or she is recognized as our guest. The guest is God, it is said. As such, let us treat our visitors with the utmost courtesy.