“Locavore” is probably not a word that’s made it into most people’s vocabulary yet. But if you’ve visited any of Northeast Mississippi’s farmers’ markets on a regular basis this summer and fall, you may be one.

Webster’s defines it as “one who eats food grown locally whenever possible.” It appeared in the dictionary for the first time this year, owing to the momentum of the local food movement best exemplified by the growth in numbers and popularity of farmers’ markets around the country.

They’re winding down for the season now in Tupelo and the region, and as Errol Castens reported in the Daily Journal last week, the rains over the last month or so have depleted the offerings sooner than usual. But the markets in this region stayed busy during the peak season, and everything suggests that their impact and customer base will continue to grow.

The reasons are simple. The food is fresher and tastes better than produce shipped in from California or Mexico or New Zealand or who knows where. The people who grew it are right there selling it to you, so you know where it came from. Each exchange between the sellers – small farmers, all – and the buyers is a contribution to the economic and social viability and cohesiveness of the community and region.

Other benefits may be less obvious, but no less important. Eating local saves energy, since much less in fuel is expended in driving a few miles into town from a farm in an adjacent county than traversing the continent in an 18-wheeler. The more our food supply comes from nearby known sources, the less risk there is of the contamination that occurs, untraced, in large industrial agricultural operations. The food at a farmers’ market is “real,” not processed, meaning eating more of it can improve our diet and overall health and combat the obesity epidemic.

But farmers’ markets aren’t the only venue where local food consciousness is rapidly moving into the mainstream. Many supermarkets and smaller grocery stores are now seeking out and touting local produce when it’s available. Restaurants – including a handful in Northeast Mississippi – are buying local whenever they can and reflecting that in seasonal menus.

Additionally, larger enterprises like Mississippi’s catfish farmers and Gulf Coast shrimpers are gaining support in their fight for economic viability against cheap and inferior foreign imports from Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

In this area, in addition to fruits and vegetables, meat, cheese and eggs are available for direct sale from farmers. Some of the best chicken, pork and beef I’ve ever had came from Ron and Heather Brandon’s Zion Farms in Pontotoc County, and when he remembers to bring them to the Journal office from Oxford, I’m always ready to ante-up for some of Errol Castens’ eggs. There’s the satisfaction of knowing that these family farms, unlike the factory farms of industrialized agriculture, grass-feed their animals, don’t pump them full of hormones or antibiotics, and generally treat them humanely – as you imagine when you think of the old idyllic image of the small family farm.

The economic, social and environmental advantages of local food networks are increasingly penetrating the public consciousness. Our multi-layered U.S. food system with its huge consolidated farms and far-flung distribution systems has been efficient in increasing yields and lowering costs, but it is questionable as a sustainable enterprise in future decades. And it’s no coincidence that as the system has grown larger, more concentrated and more complex, and as “whole” foods have given way to salt- and sugar-heavy processed foods, Americans have generally gotten fatter and less healthy.

“Locavores” aren’t part of some radical new movement or thinking. They’re participating in a return to the way most of our food was grown, prepared and purchased just a few decades ago. It’s good for local farmers, local businesses and anybody who eats it. In this polarized age where people are mistrustful and looking for hidden agendas, eating “food grown locally whenever possible” is something that people across all sorts of other barriers of division can agree on.

So, here’s to locally grown food and the people who produce it. They and the locavores could be taking us back to our food future.

Lloyd Gray is executive editor of the Daily Journal. Contact him at 678-1579 or lloyd.gray@djournal.com.