Local and Regional Food Systems
Introduction
There is a quiet revolution happening in the U.S. and it is connected to local food. Whether in
family meals or in restaurants, Americans are enjoying the delicious taste of local dairy, vegetables,
and fruits. Farmers’ markets are springing up in villages, towns, and cities across the country.
Parents and teachers are supporting more local food in school cafeterias. An increasing number of
supermarkets and groceries are including local produce. Community gardens and urban farms are growing
food in cities, and soup kitchens and food banks are using produce from local farmers to meet the
emergency food needs of hungry Americans. Low-income communities are creating new models of food
production and distribution, with healthy and nutritious food available for all. As these initiatives
grow, they are developing into local and regional food systems.
People enter this local food movement in many ways: one way is through taste. Have you ever bitten into a
garden-fresh tomato and experienced an incredible burst of flavor? There are reasons you don’t get that same
burst of flavor when you bite into a perfectly round and red tomato from the conventional supermarket.
Food travels an average of 1500 to 2500 miles from farm to fork. Produce varieties are now selected for
appearance and their ability to withstand that long journey rather than for taste -- and the flavor
that the fruits and vegetables do have gets lost as they travel for miles in a truck or sit in
a warehouse.
On that journey, food loses not only taste but also nutrients and dollar value -- eighty cents of every
dollar spent on food pays for marketing inputs such as labor, packaging, and transportation. Most of the money
we spend on food does not go either to the farmer or to
support the community where the food is produced. People, therefore, are also joining the local food movement
for reasons of nutrition, social justice, and solidarity. They want to become part of a local and regional
food system that values nutritious food, environmental sustainability, small farms, and strong local economies.
What Is a Local and Regional Food System?
A food system comprises the interdependent and linked activities that result in the production and exchange
of food. These include farming and community gardening; processing; storage; distribution and transportation;
food access via grocery stores, restaurants, and street food, as well as nutrition programs such as school meals
and food stamps; cooking and food preservation; and food recycling through gleaning, food banks, food pantries,
and soup kitchens.
A food system is local when it allows farmers, food producers and their customers to interact face-to-face at
point of purchase. Regional food systems generally serve larger geographical areas such as a metropolis, a
state or even multiple states, and they often can work with farmers who have larger volume of single products
to sell.
According to The Case for Local Food Systems, a white paper by the
Farm and Food Policy Project, "local food systems have strong appeal for
a number of reasons. Among the most compelling are fewer 'food miles' and fewer associated greenhouse gas
emissions; more diversification and sustainable production; less vulnerability of the food supply to widespread
contamination, intentional attacks, and disruption from natural catastrophes; better access to fresh produce;
more stable farm incomes; and more jobs and wealth retained in the local economy."
Community Food Security and Local Economic Security
Building strong local and regional food systems is about more than just good taste -- though everyone should
have the right to delicious, nutritious food. Local food systems create
community food security, in which all community residents
are able to obtain a safe, culturally appropriate, nutritionally-sound diet through an economically and
environmentally sustainable food system that promotes community self-reliance and social justice. Community
food security has many meanings in a community. It gives access to nutritious food, which becomes part of
the community culture. It builds the local economy and restores pride in a community’s self-reliance. It
brings nutritious food into the educational curriculum, and therefore affects the self-esteem and the health
of children. It changes the landscape though community gardens and urban agriculture.
Community food security, therefore, is as much about the health of the local economy as it is about healthy
local food. Developing local food trading networks to link food producers with consumers increases community
food security and boosts local economic security. These networks return control of the means of production
and exchange to the community, giving it more power and autonomy. Economic power is returned to those who
have been deprived of such power.
Communities around the country have conducted local economic analyses demonstrating ways that food dollars
flow out of the economy -- including money that consumers pay for foods that could be produced locally but
aren't, and the amount that local conventional farmers pay for inputs, debt payments, and other expenses.
The Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy (C-PREP) in New York State
found that residents of low-income neighborhoods (both urban and rural) spend "substantial sums of money
to purchase basic food, all of which local farms and food producers have the capacity to produce."
C-PREP estimates that "for
every $1 million of new farm revenue from local basic food purchases, the local
economy could grow by
$2 million in new income and 1.45 jobs." Multiplying this out to the New York state level,
the study estimates that if New Yorkers would buy just "10% more of their
food from New York farmers and another 10% from New York food manufacturers, they would
fuel economic growth with 17,000 new jobs and $16.5
billion in new revenue."
Transition from Global to Local
Strengthening local and regional food systems, however, is not about isolationism and it doesn't mean having to
give up coffee and olive oil. It is about recognizing the impact of our food choices and food dollars. 
It
is about having the right to know where your food came from, who produced it and how, and the chance to buy
food that supports your local community and reflects your values. It is about re-weaving a complex web
of connections -- social, economic, ecological, and political in nature -- that are being torn asunder by
our industrial global food system.
The global food system disenfranchises small-scale farmers, destroys local food systems, increases inequality,
and reduces biodiversity. Around the world, groups of farmers and others who care about control of their food
have organized into a movement for food sovereignty, defined
as "the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and
sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems." In practice, food
sovereignty might look like a global network of local and regional food systems.
Internationally, the peasant group La Via Campesina is at the
forefront of the food sovereignty movement. In the related fair trade movement, groups such as Transfair
are creating fair trade networks, allowing communities to connect across
borders through the exchange of a fair price for products such as chocolate, rice, or bananas. The farmers
who receive fair prices for these products are able to reinvest this money into their local economies and
food systems.
At the local level, food sovereignty is about building community control of your food -- by conducting a
community food assessment,
starting an
urban farm and market, or
connecting
your local farmers to institutions
-- that is, through building viable local and regional food systems. Buying food grown closer to home is not
a quaint throwback to an agrarian age. It is a powerful tool for transforming our economy away from a race
to the bottom in environmental and health standards, and toward an economy that is based on principles of
democracy, community, and sustainability.
Sources:
- This introduction includes input from Alison Cohen, Northern Program Manager, Heifer International
- Building Local Food Systems: A Planning Guide, Hank Herrera, The Center for Popular
Research Education and Policy, 2006.
- The Case for Local Food Systems, Farm and Food Policy Project, March 2007.
- Community Food Security: Key Concepts, Food Security Learning Center, June 2007.
Updated 7/2007
