Have you ever wondered what supporting your local economy actually means? And what does it really look like in Nova Scotia? Welcome to our article series “Why Buy Local”, where we explore perspectives and ideas on why buying local matters.
According to the Centre for Local Prosperity’s Import Replacement Report, $4 out of every $10 spent leaves Atlantic Canada. They use the imagery for our economy being a leaky bucket – which certainly doesn’t evoke strength and resilience! This leakage contributes towards economic fragility and demonstrates that there is a big opportunity for import replacement in Nova Scotia..
With rare exceptions, Nova Scotia consistently imports more than we export, creating what is known as a trade deficit. When Nova Scotia imports goods that we could be making here, it sends money out of our communities that could have gone towards businesses and jobs right here at home.
Every unnecessary import subjects us to risk. Risk of shortages, supply chain disruptions, price hikes, and issues beyond our local control. We’ve all seen this and felt this in our wallets over the last few years.
When a lot of people hear about import replacement and supporting your local economy, they might envision a totally different economic system that seems unattainable and too radical of a departure from how we’re currently spending money. However, if we think about only a 10% shift toward local goods and services in Atlantic Canada, this is what would happen:
- The GDP of the region would grow by $4.7 billion.
- We’d create 43,000 new jobs.
- We’d generate 2.6$ billion in new wages.
- This 10% shift would provide enough joys to employ one third of those who were unemployed (at the time of this report).
According to Canada’s Food Price Report, the average Canadian family of four spends somewhere between $15,000 and $16,000 on food per year. Imagine if every family, or your family, spent a portion of that locally? Every local purchase we make as a community helps our province’s economic bucket leak a little less.
To make this more tangible, join us for another thought experiment. Let’s break it down into how your weekly spending can impact local producers:
- Let’s say you give a local farm $5 a week for a few bunches of kale or a carton of eggs. For a lot of people, that’s their starting point and everyone loves local eggs and long lasting greens. $5 a week is $260 per year. That could cover that business’s website subscription fee and the cost of their business cards. One local farmer told us that would cover their booth rental fees for 5 farmers market days.
- At $10 a week, that’s over $500 a year. A goat farmer and soap producer told us that would cover a marketing photoshoot for their business, or an emergency vet bill.
- If you spend $20 a week at a local farm for a bag of fresh produce, that’s $1,040 per year.
- Let’s say you spent $50 a week at a farmers’ market, that’s $2,600 per year distributed between the businesses you support.
- If you spent $100 a week at a farmers’ market, that’s $5,200 per year of direct investment in your community.
The takeaway from this concept is that small does not mean insignificant. We need everyone to be practicing buying local imperfectly or in small changes to see really strong benefits in our community.
Want ideas on how to make buying local more enjoyable and sustainable? Check out our article here.
