There are many good reasons for buying from small, local producers, not least because ther's such a good range on our doorstep.

FIGHT back against the supermarkets - buy locally. It makes life more interesting, keeps money in the area, encourages small producers, keeps regional varieties, cuts down on all those lorries pounding up and down the motorways - and puts a tiny dent in the profits of the likes of Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's. Which can't be bad.

And if you make it organic as well, even better. We are lucky to have quite a number of organic producers and retailers in this part of the world. They include Acorn Dairy in Darlington, who process organic milk from their own farm; Low Leases Organics at Leeming Bar, who deliver local veg, fruit, eggs, rare breed meat and groceries across a wide area; Bluebell Organics at Forcett, who run a box scheme as well as selling at farmers' markets and Hazelbrow Farm at Low Row.

One of the biggest and oldest retailers is The Organic Farm Shop on the edge of Pickering. Mike Sellers has been selling home produced vegetables and meat for 20 years and has a terrific range on offer.

Out of This World in Gosforth, Newcastle, is a consumer co-op with over 16,500 members. Their small chain of ethical and organic supermarkets sell over 5,000 different products. Most of the food is organic and they also stock fairly traded crafts, papers and body care products.

Other organic producers are as varied as the Camphill Village Trust, in Botton, and the Larchfield Community, in Middlesbrough, through to Castle Howard estate, where they produce organic meat and arable crops.

Nature's World, in Middlesbrough, has organic demonstrations and a monthly farmer's market. Demeter Seeds, at Botton, produces biodynamic and organic vegetable herb and flower seeds. Larberry Farm Shop, near Stockton, caters for special diets including gluten-free, dairy-free, wheat-free and diabetic, while El Piano, a friendly vegetarian restaurant in York, uses lots of organic food and caters for wheat-free, gluten-free and vegan diets. Stamfreys, of West Rounton, makes clotted cream.

And a remainder of what it's all about comes from the Lazy Dog Company near Kirkbymoorside - they make specialist hand tools for weeding. Organic always means a bit more work.

All these and many more - farm shops, meat producers, delicatessens with good organic ranges, etc - are mentioned in The Organic Directory published by the Soil Association and Green Books (£6.95). As well as shops and farm gate sales, it also has details of cafes and bed and breakfast places which use organic food, so is useful for holidays, too.

It's a shame it can't list farmers' markets, but maybe they change too often for the information to be any help. But a useful book all the same and just the incentive we need.

www.greenbooks.co.uk

MONEYWATCH

- HOUSE INSURANCE

HAD your insurance renewal notice lately? READ THE SMALL PRINT! Ideally, you should check - via the Internet or a broker - whether your insurance company is still giving you the best deal. But you can still save yourself a fortune by reading the documents properly. This is especially important if you pay your insurance by direct debit, as the company will just take the money they've calculated. And if you don't check, it could be far too much.

It's amazing what you find. Abbey has been insuring our house for 16 years, so you think they'd know by now where we live - especially as they still own a small chunk of it. The price of buildings insurance has crept up by £10-£20 a year. This year, it had shot up by nearly £100 - more than 30 per cent. Time to read the small print.

This is where I found that they had magically changed our 1970s four bedroom detached, complete with locks, smoke alarms and in a Neighbourhood Watch area, to a three bed, 1908 semi with no security systems at all.

What's more, they'd decided that my husband and I were both 104 years old. Now I know we're feeling our age, but that seemed a bit ridiculous.

When I rang them, a helpful girl sounded not a bit surprised at this major mistake but did a few re-calculations on the proper facts. When she'd finished, not only did we not have to pay the vast increase, our insurance was actually cheaper than it had been for the last five years.

I always thought that insurance was carefully calculated by highly trained actuaries after years of training and research into the implications of every minor variation. I know now I was wrong - it's actually done entirely by guesswork.

Make them guess a bit harder - we had our insurance reduced from £446 to £230. It has to be worth a phone call. And I'm sure we don't look anything like 104 years old.