CHENNAI: Do you know where your food comes from? We aren’t talking about your next door grocery store or an online delivery platform that delivers your vegetables and fruits. Have you ever wondered where your local vegetable vendor gets his produce from?  Surprisingly, most of us are not aware of how our food is grown and where it comes from. 

Our ancestors knew exactly where every morsel of their food came from. Food was cultivated in their own backyards, and cattle and poultry were raised around them. Over the course of the last few decades, all of that has changed. We live in a world of refrigerated, pre-packed and processed foods with little or no knowledge about the back story associated with it. We eat food laced with chemicals everyday. Even when we buy fresh organic, we can never be sure if it has been really grown without chemicals.

In today’s day and age, we are far removed from the source of our food. We are clueless about the local produce or we rarely interact with farmers to understand how our food is grown. Should you care about where your food comes from? Yes, you should! Our everyday food decisions have a direct impact on our health. When we are at the supermarket aisle, we lay emphasis on flawless produce by discarding that tomato that looks crooked, that spinach bundle that has some holes in it, the beetroot that is too small, or the cauliflower with a yellow tinge. We buy vegetables that are perfectly shaped irrespective of whether it’s healthy or not. 

The meal you eat is a lot more special when you know where each ingredient comes from. A meal from your own farm or backyard has a story to tell. Here’s why it’s important to know where your food comes from. 

Better for your health: We have all heard about the expression ‘you are what you eat’. We as consumers focus on buying beautiful produce rather than healthy produce. This puts immense pressure on farmers to produce perfectly shaped vegetables. It’s no surprise they go overboard with fertilisers to grow produce faster, over-use pesticides to make sure there are no holes in leafy vegetables, inject steroids to make the gourds bigger and bleach the cauliflowers to make them white. All these chemicals have a definitive impact on your health. Opt for fully traceable and organic food. Take it a step further by growing your own vegetables to know exactly where your food comes from. 

Benefits the local farmer:  Knowing who grows our food and understanding issues that impact production is the first step towards fixing our food system. 

A farmer will have answers to questions your local grocery store will not. Locally grown organic produce gives you a true farm to table experience. There is minimal travel time from harvesting to delivery, the produce tastes fresh and helps local farmers thrive. 

Buying directly from a farmer is profitable for the farmer too. Better for the environment: Growing organically keeps the soil fertile. Opting for locally grown and in-season produce reduces your carbon footprint to a great extent. Your produce can be delivered to you with minimal transportation, storage and packaging. Secondly, when you grow your own vegetables or partner with a local farmer, it helps improve green cover.  

(Gitanjali is the COO and co-founder at Farmizen. 
She won Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leaders Award recently for her 
contribution in agriculture.)