With eating so much more than a pastime, we find people looking for alternative ways of both purchasing and eating.

Our food travels an average of 1,500 miles before it reaches our table. Transportation carries with it a huge cost in fuel, machines and labor. In reality, the food industry, just as all others, is trying to cut costs dealing with labor - actually adding to the overall cost by complicating the process. The use of fuel alone creates a thunderhead of problems with our ecology.

We actually do not know how our food was grown thanks to a blanket effort to cut costs through this never-ending expansion in all business today. You simply cannot beat homegrown food from family farmers whose very first customers are their family members.

The word "efficiency" is a well-worn word describing the dictates of profit, which by the way escapes many in this global expansion of ours. Now to be recognized are the shortcuts found in modern technology with the use of chemicals and anything other than natural ingredients from the earth.

Next we must consider how the soil is managed where these crops are grown. Are these crops rotated or are we constantly pushing our best soils for highest profit margins? Crop rotation avoids using some of the chemicals otherwise needed.

For example, if corn were to follow corn for many years in a row, we will find ourselves depleting this soil of nutrients never lost by a good rotation. Are our soils so managed as to increase their water retention and absorption? Are minerals balanced? It is one thing to grow a crop successfully and quite another to return all Earth's nutrients that a crop removes.

Farm management is a farm-family trait proudly held by the American family farmer shepherding God's green Earth while growing the miracle of life for his children. This is an honor earned and handed down through generations of farmers. In this respect, homegrown food is cheaper at almost any cost we see in print. There are few shortcuts and even less people who care enough to keep a strict adherence to the ways of nature.

Organic farming comes to mind when we speak of nature's way of growing food. However, many large farms are doing a great job and are to be congratulated for it. One thing to be remembered is that imported food must meet our standards for quality if it is to be delivered to our people. As you shop for food, please remember also that the food produced the closest to your cupboard will be your best buy because it will be the freshest food available.

Gene Rake, Columbus