Proponents of Canada's emerging 'eat local' movement say that a more direct link from the farm to the fork enables families to feel more secure about what they eat.

A study cited by the David Suzuki Foundation website estimates that a basic North American meal travels 2,400 km from field to table -- roughly the driving distance from Regina to Toronto.

Such vast distances and widespread shipping patterns on food became apparent last summer, when alerts were issued over contaminated spinach. The deadly E. coli outbreak found in packaged spinach killed three people in the U.S. and sickened more than 200 in nearly 30 different states and in Ontario.

After months of investigation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced they had narrowed the source of the tainted spinach to one field in San Benito County. However, researchers said they will never definitively know how the bacterium was transferred from the field to the produce.

"The larger stores that are buying from the distributor alone aren't going to be able to source their individual products, so it gets harder to identify where the product came from," Bonita MaGee, Project Manager of Farm Folk/ City Folk Society, told CTV.ca from Vancouver.

"Buying locally is much safer than just eating food that has been purchased en masse from god knows where."

Safety vs. security

In Vancouver, the local food movement grew out of support for organically grown products.

Clair Gram, Regional Coordinator of the Healthy Communities and Community Food Security for Vancouver Coastal Health, says the two issues are closely linked.

"People adopted the need for supporting organic produce, but now, people are realizing that you can still produce organic food in the industrial food model."

MaGee said the popularity of local food in British Columbia is motivated by a growing commitment to overall healthy eating in the province.

"We've got agriculture in our province from border to border. I think that in Vancouver and in B.C. we have always been known as a little more progressive food wise. There are probably more health food stores here than in other area of Canada," MaGee said.

The Canadian Food and Inspection Agency deems a product locally grown if the goods originated within 50 kilometres from the place they are sold.

In light of food contamination issues, providing a direct link from producer to consumer has helped to ease anxiety over tainted products. However, food safety is a small part of the global food security issue.

According to the UN's World Food Summit (1996), "food security exists when all people at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."

An issue of poverty

Globally, nearly 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty. In this country, 2.3 million Canadians don't know where their next meal will come from.

Experts say this is the first time in history that food security has encompassed the quality of food as well as the acquisition of it.

Mass produced food, per calorie, is cheaper than the more nutritious food from Canadian farmer's markets. That's part of the reason why obesity rates are so high among lower income families.

MaGee told CTV.ca it's becoming increasingly difficult for families on lower income scales to afford fresh fruits and vegetables.

Equipping people with the resources to provide nutritious and fresh meals for their families, and to even grow their own food, provides more than just nutrients.

"It's empowering people and yourself and getting the resources on how to prepare fresh foods instead of the processed stuff in a box that you add water to and put it in the microwave," MaGee said.

Local food production helps to ensure consistent, stable food access while bolstering local economies.

"When you are buying a product that is local, up to 90 per cent of your food dollar is staying in your community. We've got 20,000 farms in B.C. and most of them are small scale sustainable family farms," MaGee said.

Vancouver groups have also studied the issue of what might happen to the region's food supply in the wake of a disaster -- an earthquake or a border closing.

"Studies have shown we have about three days of supply in the grocer," MaGee said.

In addition to improving food security and enabling greater food safety, supporting local food initiatives helps to reduce the impact food consumption has on the environment.

The Sierra Club of Canada estimates the CO2 emissions attributed to the food consumed by a family of four are eight tones a year; further evidence that the switch to support small-scale local producers has the potential for big global gains.