...and I would walk 100 more

After reading over my last post, it may seem as though I'm slamming authors who take on the existing "food establishment", and that certainly is not the case. I think it would be wonderful if we could all buy our meat and vegetables from Mr. Green Jeans, our local farmer who farms organically and raises enough food to feed the entire community. There I go again, sounding all acrimonius. I encourage everyone to eat local, organic food as much as possible, I simply think there are certain assumptions made by environmental authors that are just not true. In fact, I noticed one of these assumptions in my last post - the assumption that are large farms are evil.
Because of economies of scale it may actually be cheaper for large farms to go organic than for smaller farms. Larger farms can also more readily implement technology such as hydroponics to make farming organically more efficient. Smaller farms may find the investment in such technologies cost-prohibitive. If large farms are managed using sustainable agricultural practices, they are every bit as beneficial as smaller farms. I should also point out that the terms "small" and "large" are undefined and so are rather vague and relative terms.
As further evidence that these assumptions are just not true, we can look at a local farmer's market, the local, organic food activists mecca. I live in Jacksonville, Florida so Melissa and I decided to make a visit to the local farmer's market which is in fact the oldest continuously operating farmer's market in the state. We were excited to be starting on the 100 Mile Diet and were certain that we would find all sorts of wonderful local, organic delicacies. To our dismay, we were completely wrong.
One of the first things we saw when we arrived were some very interesting beans, rather like fava beans, but speckled bright red and white. We asked the proprietor of the stall what kind of beans these were and they didn't know. This was not a fortuitous sign at all. However, it was a harbinger of what was to come. As we proceeded, we saw many varieties of produce, which from the cartons they were in appeared to be within a 100 mile range, however, when I asked if the produce was organic, I was met with numerous blank stares. It appeared that very few of the people selling produce at the local farmer's market were local, farmers, or even spoke much English. This is not a jibe, just a statement of fact. As we trudged valiantly onward in our quest for local, organic food I noticed many stalls with boxes of Dole bananas and other produce that was not in season yet in Florida. Granted, I am not a farmer but I'm pretty sure that the climate of North Florida, or even most of Florida, is not conducive to growing a large amount of bananas or coconuts. Needless to say, our farmer's market trip was more of a misadventure than not. There is another farmer's market in Alachua, about 90 minutes away that I would like to check out. I've been told that it is actually manned (peopled?) by local farmers, so I am cautiously optimistic about it.
This brings up the question again, if you have to make a choice between local and organic, which is better?