According to the Agricultural Marketing Service, farmers’ markets in the United States have increased 18 percent since 2004. Leading this market movement is a group of citizens known as locavores. The word—Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year in 2007" — refers to anyone who is committed to eating as locally and seasonally as possible. Along with the movement came an eating trend: the 100-Mile Diet in which those who subscribe to it try to eat only locally produced food that is grown less than 100 miles from where they live and shop. This is where greenmarkets come in particularly handy.
But before we call local produce the latest bandwagon pulling through town, consider this: local produce and farmers’ markets predate even the earliest bandwagons. When talking about local foods, Frederick Kaufman, author of "A Short History of the American Stomach" is quick to note that “local food in New York has always been a thriving enterprise.”
