Local Foods

Dear Readers,

I hope you have been enjoying reading the Northeast Kingdom Farm to Table Blog. This project has been a wonderful opportunity for me to become more familiar with the local food scene. It is exciting to learn about so many good people working so hard to provide high quality, healthy food for their neighbors.

Here are links to all of the farms we’ve featured so far:
Pete’s Greens, Craftsbury VT
www.petesgreens.com
Chandler Pond Farm, South Wheelock VT
www.chandlerpondfarm.com
Deep Mountain Maple, West Glover VT
www.deepmountainmaple.com
Shuttleworth Farm, Westfield, VT
www.shuttleworthfarm.com

And to the Vermont Fresh Network, a program that links farms and restaurants across the state of Vermont: www.vermontfresh.net.

This week we are once again featuring meat from Shuttleworth Farm, and I’d like to take this opportunity to familiarize you more with the concept of “farm to table” or “local foods.” I’ve taken the following information selectively from the Wikipedia article on local foods. There are links at the end to some excellent online articles to read about the movement, as well as recommendations for books and movies to check out.
full article
“The Farm to Table, or Local Foods Movement is a collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular place” and is considered to be a part of the broader sustainability movement. It is part of the concept of local purchasing and local economies, a preference to buy locally produced goods and services. Those who prefer to eat locally grown/produced food sometimes call themselves locavores or localvores.

The concept is often related to the slogan "Think globally, act locally'', common in green politics. Those supporting development of a local food economy consider that since food is needed by everyone, everywhere, every day, a small change in the way it is produced and marketed will have a great effect on individual's health, the ecosystem and preservation of cultural diversity. Activists in the movement claim that shopping decisions favoring local food consumption directly affects the well-being of people, improve local economies and may be more ecologically sound.

Critics of the movement often say that local food tends to be more expensive to the consumer than food bought without regard to provenance and could never provide the variety currently available (such as having summer vegetables available in winter, or having kinds of food available which can not be locally produced due to soil, climate or labor conditions. The actual cost of local food versus non-local food is still being debated, since costs can vary depending on the region. Generally there is a consensus that local food can be more expensive, though community-supported agriculture (CSA) can make eating local food more affordable and accessible to the local community.

Local food proponents point out that the lower price of commodified food (which is sometimes called cheap food) is often due to a variety of governmental subsidies, including direct subsidies such as price supports, direct payments or tax breaks, and indirect approaches such as subsidies for trucking via road infrastructure investment, and often does not take into account the true cost of the product. As a result, organic and sustainably grown food will continue to cost more until policy changes are made. Some suggest that it is acceptable to favor local foods when available, rather than limit oneself to strictly local foods."

Well said, Wikipedia.

Thanks for reading, check back next week when we’ll be featuring Berry Creek Farm of Westfield!

Recommended Books
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan’s
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver

Recommended Movies:
The Future of Food
Food Inc.

Online Articles:
“Food That Travels Well.” The New York Times, August 6, 2007
"A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss." The New York Times. July 22, 2008
“The Lure of the 100-Mile Diet.” Time Magazine. Sunday June 11, 2006.
“Eating Better Than Organic.” Tim Magazine. March 2, 2007.
“The Cost of Eating Green.” MSN Money.