Last Friday while I was making dinner I realized that I really enjoy finding a bit of dirt on my produce. It means it’s fresh, no one tried to shine it up for me, and it wasn’t processed.

Friday is farmer’s market day, the day that we stock up on every little bit of fresh produce that we think we can manage to eat before it goes bad. We would much rather go to the farmer’s market to procure fresh produce because 1. it’s fresh and 2. its cheap.

Not only is the produce available at the farmer’s market fresh, but most of it is naturally or “responsibly” grown. In fact about 10% of Uruguay’s GDP is agriculture. Uruguay is a small country with a lot of undeveloped land that can be used for agriculture, and much of that farming is done without the use of pesticides and insecticides. Considering that it takes about 7 hours to reach the borders of Uruguay, most of the produce is also produced very locally! Uruguay even made ChinaBusiness’ top 10 Organic Farming countries list.

This tendency to work the land naturally also carries over to the cattle industry in Uruguay. The cattle raised in Uruguay, giving rise to the two biggest exports for the country, beef and leather goods, are all grass-fed, never given hormones, or kept in pens. The USDA has also granted Uruguayan beef grass-fed certification for U. S. markets.

Obviously it’s a great start and there’s always room to improve, but I gotta say that the produce available in Montevideo tastes much better than what we find in U.S. grocery stores.

Next time you prepare a meal, think about where your food is coming from. Find out about farmer’s markets in your area and think about eating locally. Also, for people in the U.S., think about checking out the Union of Concerned Scientists who are making concerted efforts at improving farm bill legislation to make it easier for organic farmers to survive and prosper.