Local food from Wally-world, Week 12

This week’s readings hone in on a few different key concepts. One major question brought up throughout the literature is whether or not eating local and focusing on solely local food movements as a planner are viable solutions to having sustainable food systems. Others include the tensions currently within the food system, how to promote healthy eating and the ways in which that intertwines within the community, and ultimately how all of these intersect within the planning arena for food systems.

First off, depending if your goal is to have a sustainable food system for your community or if you’re working on a regional or larger scale, the sustainability of the food system may have different needs. Born and Purcell identify this idea of the local trap and bring into question whether focusing on just local food really is applicable for everyone and if it really hones in on the need for sustainable and accessible food system. I think that this ties nicely into the need to promote healthy eating in that, although some foods may be deemed as ‘local’, does that necessarily make them the best choice out there or the healthiest? I think the example of Wal-mart being a supplier of ‘local foods’ is a great example to show that the movement overall is shifting into more of a media tool than an educational venue for uncovering the issues with the current global system. In this way, it’d relaly important to emphasize the need for healthy foods and the need for planners to re-address the values and goals for changing the food system; making them explicitly adhere to what the community really wants and not just the terminology of local foods.

I think that DeLind makes this point really clear; that we need to re-emphasizve the local food movement’s systemic roots-starting with local visibility and empowerment. This speaks to the need to refocus on sustainable systems and look at the issues occurring with the whole food system, not just the place-specific areas and the ‘local-ness’ of the food, but the quality and impact that the food has on the greater society. This can be achieved through conversation and through analyzing values and goals of the individual and of the community as a whole; ultimately looking at the global impacts within local choice. This gets back to the understanding that the food system essentially is ‘the place where the local meets the global’ [Gottlieb 2001], which extends beyond just choice of food and the physical place of it, but makes the understanding that local choice and local impact also impact and are impacted by global choice and global impact, extending from sustainable land use to health and quality of the food and the means by which it gets to your plate.

With all of these tensions that are outlined within Campbell’s ‘Building a Common Table’, ‘It’s important to also keep in mind these greater values and goals outlined within the local food movement that have larger purposes solutions; i.e. social and environmental justice issues, issues of race, health and economic inequities, and access. Eating local is great, supporting the local economy is great, making sure that the local foods your eating are healthy and sustainable and really creating that visibility is great. I also think it’s important to focus on these larger solutions that local food systems can have and as a planner, allowing this to be incorporated into the greater community conversation can allow for planners to realign the values of the community (maybe they’re main priorities aren’t good) and really show the connection between food and the social and economic structure of the area; particularly when addressing and promoting health and trying to overcome the tensions in the food system as outlined by Campbell in Table 2.

After reading these articles and weighing more on the local food movement and it’s perceptions to society. What do you think makes up the local food movement? Who is following it the most? Have you seen other ‘bad’ examples such as Wal-Mart marketing local food?