Humans are only fully human when we are involved with each other, and the majority of us find happiness most easily through collective achievement. If we join our neighbors in the adventures of building a local economy that supplies and supports us all, true happiness, deep joy, is waiting to be found.
—RICHARD DOUTHWAITE, SHORT CIRCUIT
The intriguing thing about localizing our food supply is that it leads to confronting many complex global issues that are closely related and that impact everyone locally. Food is the gateway issue.
Getting involved in food localization can seem overwhelming at first, leaving us floundering to find a place to start. But here are the things that all of us must do and that we all can do.
• Learn everything we can about our food—where it comes from, who grew it, how it was grown, its nutrient properties, how it got to our table.
• Learn to grow at least some of our own food.
• Learn how to eat seasonally.
• Learn how to preserve and store food.
• Learn how to waste less food.
• Be prepared to share what we have to eat.
• Reduce our consumption of meat.
• Eat seafood only if it is sustainably raised and caught.
• Demand the labeling of genetically modified food.
• Develop new skills and knowledge—composting, vermiculture, permaculture, soil building, seed saving, cultivating, canning and preserving, cooking, nutrition planning, herbal medicine, and so on.
And we must do all this rather quickly! Fortunately, there are some other practical beginning steps that almost everyone can take.
• Take the 10% Local Food Shift Pledge.
• Buy direct from farmers whenever possible. Join a CSA and shop at farmers markets and farm stands.
• Buy from grocers who source locally.
• Patronize restaurants that serve locally produced food.
• Demand that supermarkets carry more local and organic food.
• Explore the hundred-mile diet.
• Consider keeping chickens, bees, and goats.
• Learn how to save and exchange seeds.
• Share local food with friends and neighbors; have potlucks.
• Volunteer at local farms and gardens.
• Contribute to community food banks.
• Invest in local food and farming enterprises.
From personal experience, we can vouch that taking even a few of these practical steps is life changing. For an evolutionary catalyst called to the mission of food localization, they are doorways to something much more significant.
We live in a world in transition, in which we are beset with awesome challenges and unexpected opportunities. We are between stories, between worlds, and nothing seems clear. Just as times of war generate enormous economic opportunities, so does this crisis—an opportunity to correct the very fundamentals of economics. Likewise, we humans have opportunities for contribution, meaning, and purpose that would be unlikely to arise in less turbulent times, opportunities to engage in one of the greatest projects in modern human history, the local food revolution—the healing of much of what afflicts our world today.
• We’re calling upon farmers and ranchers and food entrepreneurs new and old, large and small, to participate in catalyzing the local food revolution, one of the greatest transfers of health and wealth we’ve seen in many decades. We’re asking them to see themselves as social entrepreneurs, to become drivers of systemic change, to seize the opportunities that the local food gold rush presents, to innovate the new systems and processes that will be needed, and to forge high common standards for local food production, as well as high systemic standards of fairness, equity, sustainability and stewardship, ethics and accountability, cooperation and collaboration, and food sovereignty.
• We’re calling upon chefs, restaurateurs, caterers, and food retailers—who are in a position to influence more eaters than almost anyone—to source a substantial percentage of their foodstuffs from local growers and value-added producers.
• We’re calling upon conventional food producers, manufacturers, and service providers to diversify their operations by beginning to meet some of the growing demand for local food.
• We’re calling upon eaters everywhere to participate in this historic revolution, which will help turn our troubled world right side up. We’re asking them to shift their eating, cooking, and food purchasing patterns; to become homegrown food producers, and to shift some of their money into local food economies. In short, we’re encouraging them to abandon the story that they are consumers and to begin taking up their role as engaged food citizens. As Charles Eisenstein says, “The most direct way to disrupt the Story of Separation at its foundation is to give someone an experience of nonseparation.”
• We’re calling upon local citizens to activate their economic power and to move a small portion of their money into the local food system.172
• We’re calling upon institutional food buyers—schools, corporate cafeterias, airports, convention centers, and so on—to make a commitment to devote a significant portion of their purchasing budget to local food.
• We’re calling upon local government leaders, policy makers, community activists, and nonprofit agencies to raise awareness, to mobilize public support, to focus priorities, and to help remove barriers.
• We’re calling upon holders of significant financial wealth—individuals investors, successful entrepreneurs, philanthropic foundations, capital-investment firms, hedge funds, banks, credit unions, and large corporations—to devote a portion of their capital to help build local and regional food systems.
• We’re calling upon experienced legal counsel, entrepreneurs, business and agriculture consultants, and experts of all disciplines to step into the fray to help—without demanding traditional pay rates.
• We’re calling for journalists, creative writers, media producers, bloggers, artists, and musicians to investigate, capture, and celebrate the local food revolution, bringing it to center stage, where it belongs.
• We’re calling upon faith communities to join together in supporting the local food revolution.
• We’re calling for a rebirth of food-based culture and community.