It the article Big Business Versus Mom-and-Pop, the author talks about the advantages and disadvantages of buying your food from locally owned companies and buying from Big businesses like Wal-Mart. They mention how recently the organic food market has changed from being a home grown movement to something that even Big Businesses are taking part in. This has some local organic farmers worried that they will be losing business because companies are now able to import organic food for a lot less money than it would cost to buy the same food from the local farmers.
The article mentions that instead of buying food from the big retail chains, like Wal-Mart, consumers should consider buying food at local food co-ops. The author feel that this is a good idea because by buying food at the co-ops you are giving back to your community because the co-ops will hire more local people and are also giving back to the community through taxes. Another advantage to buying your food at a locally owned co-op is that you can get your food at a cheaper rate. This is because co-ops are given discounts for buying in bulk and these discounts are passed down to the people that buy their products. Also, unlike big business where you don’t have much of a say in how the company is run and what products are offered, when you belong to a co-op you actually have a say and a voice in how things are run and operated.
Others say that buying from these co-ops isn’t such a good idea because it is taking money away from developing countries that are being paid by big businesses, like Wal-Mart, to produce their food.

Here is a link to the article that I researched:

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/local-or-organic3.htm