The Environment
If you support strip malls and chain stores, your community will be paved with more strip malls and chain stores, along with the highways and parking lots that provide access to them. If you support local independent farmers, your community will be dotted with farms, along with the winding gravel lanes that provide access to them. (It should be noted that winding gravel lanes allow water to filter down through them until it is naturally clean and replenishes the water table. The water that runs off parking lots is fouled with toxins, and often goes directly into our streams and rivers--i.e., our drinking water.)
Which neighbor would you rather have?
Farms provide habitat for wildlife; strip malls do not. Farmers leave buffers of woods around their fields to prevent the wind from eroding the topsoil. Developers bulldoze the entire property—trees, topsoil and all—and then plant a few small trees at the edge of the parking lot. (Think about it—how many shady parking places are there at the mall?)
If you buy the products with which the national food-processing industry stocks the grocery store chains, there will be more food-processing plants and more 18-wheelers driving cross-country to get your food to those grocery stores (at no small cost to the environment). If you buy from local farmers, there will be less energy used and less pollution created in the transportation and storage of your food.
Flavor and Nutrition
Both the flavor and the nutritional value of fresh produce degrade rapidly after it is harvested. The only way to ensure the availability of really fresh produce (harvested yesterday, not ripened on a truck) is to keep the local independent farmers in your community from going out of business.
Produce that is stored any length of time after harvest draws pests, as well as their droppings. It often requires fungicides or waxing in order to remain in saleable condition. These things are more than just unappetizing—they can present real health hazards as well.
Large corporate farms are required to grow varieties that have been bred to look good on a shelf after having endured significant handling, storage, and shipping. Flavor is often sacrificed in developing such varieties. Local independent farmers, however, do not need to concern themselves with cultivating for endurance if they are selling directly to consumers in their own community, and many of them grow flavorful heirloom varieties that are not available elsewhere.