That's why, when faced with the choice, I prefer to buy local non-organic than organic from far away. By this I mean produce from good-quality local producers, not industrial foods. I realize it's not possible, or at least not easy, for everyone to make that kind of choice. I can, either by buying at farmers' market, or direct from the producer.

In the US it's rogue e coli (the kind that makes you very sick and sometimes kills you) in green vegetables.  

Oh, yes, it is being "investigated."  No one is saying how e coli gets into green vegetables since there is no normal way for that to happen.  (Maybe they are irrigating the crops with raw sewage from slaughter-houses.)

We haven't exactly done away with food labelling.  But the label does not have to be true.  Does away with all that messy "cheating."  

The Fates are kind.

[...] Think globally, act locally?

Buying direct means producers get a fair price, with no middlemen adding big margins along the distribution chain. Nor has local food been shipped in from the other side of the country or the other side of the world, so the smaller number of "food miles" makes local food greener, too. Local food thus appeals in different ways to environmentalists, national farm lobbies and anti-corporate activists, as well as consumers who want to know more about where their food comes from.

Obviously it makes sense to choose a product that has been grown locally over an identical product shipped in from afar. But such direct comparisons are rare. And it turns out that the apparently straightforward approach of minimising the "food miles" associated with your weekly groceries does not, in fact, always result in the smallest possible environmental impact.

The term "food mile" is itself misleading, as a report published by DEFRA, Britain's environment and farming ministry, pointed out last year. A mile travelled by a large truck full of groceries is not the same as a mile travelled by a sport-utility vehicle carrying a bag of salad. Instead, says Paul Watkiss, one of the authors of the DEFRA report, it is more helpful to think about food-vehicle miles (ie, the number of miles travelled by vehicles carrying food) and food-tonne miles (which take the tonnage being carried into account).

The DEFRA report, which analysed the supply of food in Britain, contained several counterintuitive findings. It turns out to be better for the environment to truck in tomatoes from Spain during the winter, for example, than to grow them in heated greenhouses in Britain. And it transpires that half the food-vehicle miles associated with British food are travelled by cars driving to and from the shops. Each trip is short, but there are millions of them every day. Another surprising finding was that a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.

Research carried out at Lincoln University in New Zealand found that producing dairy products, lamb, apples and onions in that country and shipping them to Britain used less energy overall than producing them in Britain. (Farming and processing in New Zealand is much less energy intensive.) And even if flying food in from the developing world produces more emissions, that needs to be weighed against the boost to trade and development. [...]

This map shows (in green) Flanders(Belgium).
The red dots mark places where local initiatives are working called "voedselteams" (foodteams).
In practice there are many more than the red dots suggest.
It is about local grown vegetables and fruits, mostly, producers are members of a controled bio-label .

• 10 to 15 households form a 'team'.
  
• The commitement is to pick up weekly a 'basket' of vegetables and fruits by a local farmer.(red dots)
  
• There is a fix price for a 'basket' to pay once a month.
  
• The farmer or producer composes a 'basket' with what is available (local and from the season), if necessary other producers can provide: there is a very efficient distribution system for bio-products in place.

• You know what you eat, where it comes from, and the people who provide it. No middleman.
  
• It is a (ahum, ok...not always) weekly surprise what is in your 'basket'.
  
• The producer, knowing he has clients, can calculate in advance a lot of things: what an how much to plant, sow, order by fellow-producers (through a distribution-cooperative)......

• The kids love it to see where their food is coming from: in the pick-up places they can see where and how things grow and...
  
• At first, hearing the price it seems very expensive, but after a few weeks you realise it's even cheap compared to your usual stores.
  
• In practice I see that one person collects the 'baskets' and distributes them among 3 to 6 other households; it's a garanteed weekly social contact. Sometimes this task is for everyone on turn, when the team has 12 households you have to do it only every 3 months.