Buy Michigan effort gains steam

In an age of globalization, buying local may seem like an impossible dream.

But determined consumers in Michigan are finding it a bit easier these days to spend their money on local products. More stores are highlighting Michigan-made goods on their shelves.

And more farmers markets are letting consumers buy directly from local growers. "I try to buy as much local food as I can to put money in the local economy," Kristine Kidorf, 42, of Detroit said last week at a newly opened farmers market near Wayne State University.

Economists say buy-local campaigns can give a real, if hard to quantify, boost to the local economy.

"Any time you can recirculate dollars within an economy you help to increase what we like to call the multiplier effect and economic impacts," said Scott Watkins, a senior consultant with the East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group.

Beginning Monday, a Buy Michigan Now festival in downtown Northville highlights many of those products and encourages consumers to spend their dollars to boost local businesses.

Lisa Diggs, a business consultant who organized the festival and operates the Web site www.buymichigannow.com, said she got the idea while traveling around the country.

"The economies in other states were just better than in my home state," she said. "I wanted to do something about that. It seemed that the easiest thing to do was to get people to keep more of their money here."

Diggs' Web site includes a database to find names of producers of many kinds of Michigan-made products.

Lots of people are thinking the same way. At Hiller's, a chain of seven supermarkets in metro Detroit, a "Made in Michigan" shelf tag highlights locally produced goods.

"We just wanted to do something to restore our economy and restore the image of our beautiful state," said Justin Hiller, vice president of the chain.

Michigan's economic problems have given a renewed push to the Buy Michigan sentiment. Lots of people try to buy local not only to help regional producers but to detach themselves from an economic system gone wrong.

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