With the cost of gas prices sky high and random contaminated food scares making the rounds regularly, it just might pay to buy local now more than it ever has. When you buy from local farmers and merchants your dollar stretches farther, you reduce your carbon footprint, and you keep your neighbors (relatively speaking) in business. Now, to me, that is ROI. And, the fact that it is summer for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere it is the easiest time of the year to do so.