Creating a Local Food System
In recent years there has been a growing interest amongst the general population to eat healthy and eat local. This interest has sparked more individuals to grow some of their own food, join a CSA (community supported agriculture), eat at restaurants that serve locally grown food, even learn how to preserve food.
However, these types of individual or market-drive responses are both inadequate and in some ways unsustainable. Individual actions are inadequate in that they tend to ignore the power of the existing agribusiness system and it is unsustainable, because much of the focus has been put on operating within the for-profit, market economy. Until eating healthy food is seen as a right and not as a commodity, we can never have a truly sustainable and just food system.
Once we have a principled framework, we need to then think about creating a local food system. Creating such a system means we need to do a local food assessment, do a food audit and create a food charter.
Assessing Our Food System
Assessing our food system involves two main components, coming to terms with what the capitalist agribusiness system looks like and an analysis of the local food realities. Our current food system is based on making money, growing mono-crops, using pesticides, government subsidies, contaminating the soil, the production of genetically modified crops and the exploitation of labor. Food in the current system means that food can be wasted and used as a tax write-off. Food in the current capitalist system is even used as a weapon, a theme that is explored in detail in Raj Patel’s book, Stuffed and Starved.
The current for-profit food system causes environmental destruction, causes poor health, contributes to global warming and is one of the main perpetrators of hunger.
Assessing the local food system requires a very similar understanding, but it also requires an assessment of the capacity to create a truly sustainable local system. Agribusiness dominates the food system in West Michigan, with the bulk of the food consumed here coming from far away. Most of the food consumed locally is also highly processed, coming from food brokers who have nothing to do with growing real food or the fast food industry, which does tremendous ecological and human health damage.
The capacity for a sustainable and just food system on the other hand is tremendous in West Michigan. We have great climate and lots of land for growing food. We have the benefit of living in the Great Lakes Water Basin, so access to water is not an issue. We have a significant amount of family owned farms and cities that can also be integral to food production. There are some good online resources for doing local food assessments, such as the Oakland Food System as well as an interesting document written by Kami Pothukuchi.
Auditing the local food system
A food policy audit is a tool to help assess a community’s existing local food policy infrastructure. It helps facilitate a process to assess the strengths, gaps and opportunities in community food policies and identify priorities to improve the local food system.
Several communities have already developed their own auditing tools, one from the University of Virginia, which directly addressed food production, distribution, and access, as well as community activities that might help improve the food system.
Lastly, it might be useful to create a community food charter. A food charter is a statement of values and principles to guide a community’s food policies. In a charter, community members come together to develop a common mission for their food and agriculture systems. Each community’s charter would be unique to its area, thus what works for West Michigan may not work in other areas.