Simply consuming locally-produced food does not do much to help the climate change issue. Perhaps it allows for a decrease in travel emissions, but in the larger picture, the US only has 5.5% of its national food supply from local farms. The US Department of Agriculture states that only 0.3% of all national wide sales are from local produce because locally produced foods are harder to maintain and sell. Furthermore, the travel emissions can be reduced and transported in a way much more efficiently. The EPA and USDA are currently debating over different and more efficient methods to transport produce so that the drivers of these produce trucks would not lose their jobs, ultimately harming the economy.

     Interestingly, only 19% of grocery shoppers believe that local produce help reduce the carbon footprint according to a USDA survey in 2013. However, 66% of grocery shoppers believe that their contributions and purchase of locally produced foods help the local economies.There are social benefits from eating locally grown food. For instance, more personal relationships  can develop and the community will receive a sense of satisfaction from helping one another. These social benefits will ultimately help this small community thrive because there is now an established dependence. However, I am unsure as how the same principle would be applied to a larger community such as San Francisco.

     From a personal perspective, my school does have a garden and I have been fortunate enough to have had a garden at my school since preschool. I loved having the garden and eating snap peas during lunch. However, these gardens were very small and not everybody could have a strawberry or carrot. Even at my high school, the garden is very large and has much help in its maintenance, but cannot feed the entire school population.