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The Globalocal Food Movement: Act Globally, Eat Locally - Notes from a Bioneers Conference Talk

Sam Schmidt's picture
Posted by Sam Schmidt on February 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 pm | 0 Replies

THE GLOBALOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT: ACT GLOBALLY, EAT LOCALLY – October 20, 2007

Neva Hassanein spoke about a COMMUNITY FOOD ASSESSMENT done in Missoula County
Hassanein is a professor of Environmental Studies, University of Montana, community organizer and author of “Changing the Way America Farms”

  • About 30 of these studies have been done around the country. They are a look at a local food system for its assets & challenges. This process gives a clearer understanding of how the food system works. These studies involve a lot of people in the process, and bring disparate groups together.

    Here is what happened in Missoula:

    The analysis was used for recommendations for change, looking at:
    1. Production
    2. Processing
    3. Distribution
    4. Consumption

  • Fifteen were on Steering Committee to guide process & research, and came up with recommendations. Fifteen students did research, and 700 people participated – farmers, ranchers, consumers – in interviews, focus groups, and surveys. When the findings were publicly released, the room was packed. The process emphasized participation – collaboration between the university & community.

  • One major outcome: Community Food & Agriculture Coalition (Food Policy Council) to promote policies and projects that will:
    1. Support local farms
    2. Move Missoula toward regional self-reliance
    3. Provide access for all to healthy & affordable foods

  • Other outcomes:
    1. Farm-to-school program
    2. Inventorying agricultural lands in and near the city to promote farmland protection
    3. Pushing for changes to subdivision regulations, so to stem tide of farmland loss
    4. Setting up “land link program” to connect people with agricultural land who don’t want to farm it, with people who are looking for farmland to either lease or buy
    5. Partnering with local farmer’s markets to take electronic food stamps
    6. Educating public
    7. Celebrating place they live through harvest festival

    Hassanein then noted that it is predicted that there will be no more agriculture in central valley of California in 100 years, due to development pressures.

    For more information, visit The Community Food and Agriculture Coalition’s website: http://www.umt.edu/cfa/

    Great quote from Michael Pollan, author of “Omnivore’s Dilemna” who also spoke:

    "We have an industrial food system that is unsustainable in many ways…What that really means though (let's recover the meaning of that word) is that it will break down...it cannot go on as it has. There are many people in that system who recognize that fact. When it breaks down we sure want to have another way to eat. That way may be organic....We could move the whole country to industrial organic agriculture, but that could fail us, too. It could fail us on the energy front most quickly of all. Again, we have energy to think about and that's a huge part of it, and we need a way to eat when the cheap oil runs out...."

    ‹ Eating Oil when we eat food Community Garden Project Resources ›