Environmental Objectives:

Current Conditions & Challenges

• To reduce global warming, open green spaces including farms, must be preserved and green house gases must be reduced.
• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, both chemical and natural farm wastes are having increasingly negative impacts on the environment.  Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides as well as hog, chicken and cattle waste polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states during the 1990's.
• There are growing concerns in the international community and by U.S. consumers about the domestic use of Genetically-Modified Organism (GMO) foods. 

How this program can improve the environment:

• This program would support current US policy goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are impacting global warming.
• Making farms profitable by connecting them more directly to the local consumer will reduce the number of farms that are lost annually, preserving green space.
• LFB’s can be a major player in carbon sequestration.   Sustainable and organic regenerative agriculture practices can trap (sequester) up to one ton of carbon in the soil, equivalent to 3 ½ ton CO2 emissions while increasing soil organic matter.
• Local Farm Businesses are more likely to produce food without having a negative effect on the environment. LFB’s can actually enhance and preserve the land so that future generations can continue to use it for food production without losing nutritional content while reducing carbon foot print at the same time.