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The provision of healthy, local food products is a core element of a relocalization strategy. By now it's widely known how much energy must be burned to facilitate the global industrially-based food economy. From pesticides and fertilizers to fuel for harvesting equipment, processing and packaging machinery, petroleum-based packaging materials, fuel for intercontinental transport (often in refrigerated trucks), and energy for the megagroceries where the often tasteless and nutrition-void food resides...this system is unhealthy and unsustainable.
Some communities have maintained and protected their local agricultural base and are well-situated for the transition to a more local food economy. Other communities have surrendured their local farmland to real estate developers for shopping malls, housing developments, and parking lots. These communities will have a more difficult time re-establishing local agriculture. The links below provide information on developing a local food economy.
Edible Gardens - Company that helps to preserve traditional heirloom seeds and provides funding for conservation efforts, community seed banks and educational programs around the world.
Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education - A USDA-based program providing information and grants related to sustainable agriculture.
Foodroutes - A national non-profit organization "dedicated to reintroducing Americans to their food the seeds it grows from, the farmers who produce it, and the routes that carry it from the fields to our tables."
Permaculture Institute - An organization designed to promote sustainable living skills through education, networking and demonstration projects.
Plants for a Future - A charitable non-profit whose purpose is researching and providing information on ecologically sustainable horticulture, promoting a high diversity, holistic and permacultural approach namely 'woodland gardening'.
Slow Food - Slow Food is an international member-supported organization that seeks to defend biodiversity in the food supply, spread taste education, and connect producers of excellent foods with co-producers through events and initiatives.
Community Food Security Coalition - The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is an organization of social and economic justice, environmental, nutrition, sustainable agriculture, community development, labor, anti-poverty, anti-hunger, and other groups dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food to all people at all times.
Anthropology of Food - A webjournal dedicated to the social sciences of food (English and French).
Local Harvest - A website to locate farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your community.
Food News - Organic and sustainable food news from the Environmenal Working Group.
Slow Food USA - American offshoot of the international slow food organization that originated in Italy.
Organics To Be - is a conversation about organic food and farming. They publish fresh posts daily except Sunday and holidays, and the Organic Newswire updates continuously.
Organic Consumers Association - an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability. The OCA deals with issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children's health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade, environmental sustainability and other topics.
Check out Sharon Astyk's Casaubon's Book which is a blog-like site with Sharon's writing on peak resources but largely discusses food issues. The latest article is about Food Storage on No Budget. Sharon also publishes the site Hen and Harvest.
A recent NY Times article notes that children and adolescents are taking medications associated with obesity such as acid reflux or cholesterol reducing medication. Th is another great indicator of a food system at odds with good health and the best interests of the community.
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