Welcome to Locavores.com.au
The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.
A Locavore is one who tries to eat only locally grown foods. A general rule for a radius is approximately 100km for a Locavore to be active within.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 2.5 million Australian households (about 35%) grow some of their own fruit and vegetables. This is estimated to be about 110,000 tonnes of fruit and about 153,000 tonnes of vegetables a year. About 80,000 Australian households have poultry that produce around 2,000 tonnes of meat and more than 26 million dozen eggs.
Where did the word locavore come from?
The coiner of word locavore, Jessica Prentice, explains how she came up with New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year.
I thought about both "localvore" and "locavore" and decided on the latter. First of all, it's easier to say, has a better flow, and almost sounds like a "real" word. But also my understanding is that the prefix "loc(a)" has to do with place — as in "location", "locomotive" and "locus"... The ending "vore" has to do with eating, and is the same root as the word "devour". To me the word "locavore" means, in a sense, "a person who eats the place" or even "one who eats with a sense of place" or, better yet, "one who devours the place" (I enjoy eating). To have used "localvore" would have limited the possible resonances and shades of meaning of the word — in my opinion.
New England locavores added the "l" because (I believe) they didn't like the association with "loca" as in the Spanish for "crazy." I live on the West Coast, where "loca" in that sense is more a positive than a negative. We're less serious out here... :-) Also, if journalists wanted to question me on that association, it would be an opportunity to explain that what is really crazy is the amount of unnecessary importation and exportation of food that currently happens in our globalized food system. So again in that way I find it to be a more expansive word.
Locavore Articles
Taking the 100-mile diet challenge, Living Now
Going the extra mile, SMH