You would think Lancaster Countians, more than most people, would be inclined to buy local produce raised by local farmers.

Sure, buying local helps save farmland, supplies healthier, tastier food and helps feed the local economy.

But here, as elsewhere, there are obstacles.

• The growth of suburbs conditions people to one-stop shopping at supermarkets where the produce may have been grown far away.

• Farmers themselves may find more demand — and higher prices — for their crops by taking them to markets in Philadelphia Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Not only that, surveys show that as many as 30 percent of consumers, dubbed "aspirationals," want to buy local, but don't know where to go and when.

They also may not know how to ask the questions that need to be asked. For example, many shoppers don't know that not all the produce they buy, even in markets, is grown in Lancaster County.

That's why, beginning this Saturday, the Lancaster Buy Fresh Buy Local group is launching an interactive multi-media campaign to challenge residents to think and buy local food for 21 days.

"We're looking for it to be fun, not finger-wagging," says Linda Aleci, chair of the BFBL steering committee.

"And we want to tell people it doesn't have to be all or nothing." Very small shifts in one's buying habits has an enormous impact on the local economy, she says.

"We want to mobilize consumers to create a market-driven force."

The campaign begins Saturday, but pledges may be made from now until the end of the month on the Buy Fresh Buy Local Web site at www.lancasterbfbl.org. More than 50 people already have signed up.

A fan page for the effort has been created on the Facebook social networking Web site and 117 Lancaster residents already have signed up.

There will be daily videos, tips, blogs, podcasts, feedback and other entries on BFBL's Web site, Facebook and Twitter.

Visitors will learn such things as how to store fresh food to make it last longer, and how to create a seasonal menu with locally grown food.

"We want to make it interactive so people feel like they are sharing something," says Anne Kirby, of the Not Bad Design consulting group that helped design the campaign. "Social networking is a big part of this."

Indeed, putting a face on the people who grow local food and the people who buy it is considered important to the campaign's success.

So is convincing residents that buying local food, whether in local farmers' markets or from restaurants that cook with locally grown produce, makes a difference.

The main themes of the campaign are that buying local is easy to do and is healthier for both consumers and their community.

The initiative comes on the heels of BFBL's new "Guide to Local Foods," a 32-page pocket-size guide that lists Lancaster County farm stands, farmers' markets, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, community-supported agriculture operations, grocers and other businesses that sell locally-grown food.

The guides, underwritten by a $10,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Economic and Community Development, are available for free at BFBL booths at market stands, coffee shops and other BFBL members. The guide also may be downloaded on the BFBL Web site.

Also boosting the case to buy local is a 25-minute DVD. It features market-goers at Central Market and Eastern Market, as well as BFBL officials. It's being distributed for free for educational purposes and can be purchased with a $10 donation on the BFBL Web site.

Aleci, making the case for buying local, says in the DVD, "One of the most important things about a local food system is it is intimate in the best sense of the word. And you have a more intense, personal connection with your food. You know where your food comes from."

A national survey found that the core group of consumers who want to be more supportive of buying local produce, but don't know how, are between 25 and 34 years old and have families.

Almost half the residents in Lancaster city fit that key demographic, Aleci notes.

Her hope is that a show of force by local residents will convince more restaurants and other food outlets to carry more local food and persuade more farmers to earmark their produce here.

"We need matchmaking," says Aleci. "I know it can be done."

E-mail: acrable@lnpnews.com
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