Consider this editorial:

Last year New York area residents bought about 24,000 tons of broccoli — almost all of it from the West Coast, 2,700 miles away…Yet this trip wasn’t necessary.  Broccoli prefers cool weather…it could have been grown successfuly from virtually anywhere else in the continental U.S., including New York’s own backyard gardens.

Sound like the latest rallying cry for the locavore/eat local movement? Guess again.  This was written by Robert Rodale in the pages of the February 1981 volume of Organic Gardening magazine.  His editorial was announcing the launch of the Cornucopia Institute, a group supporting local, small scale farmers, which is still going strong.  As seen below in this article on a movement in the north east US to bring back local grain production.

The Breadbasket of America: New England? | Cornucopia Institute

The Lesters offer a remarkable example of the creative, community-focused thinking that has driven the local foods movement for the past decade, and they are not alone. From Maine and Vermont to New York and Pennsylvania, a growing number of farmers, bakers, brewers, distillers, and food educators are working to create a regional grain network throughout the Northeast…Grain was a latecomer to the “eat local” movement but has proven a compelling addition. Whether or not it moves into the mainstream relies on how well the key players can work together.

These days any trip through Vermont has to include a stop at the Brattleboro food coop.  Good food, great support of local agriculture, lots of good bulk items (less packaging waste), good prices – even for non-members and good prepared foods.  Leslie and I had a great lunch there yesterday.  They stock roses from the local green house in Guilford CT., Roses for Autism.  So next time you find yourself traveling down route 91 in southern Vermont make a point to stop in and check it out.

BFC : Our Store

The Brattleboro Food Co-op was begun in 1975 as a small buying club. Today, after our November 1997 expansion, the Co-op is a 16,000 square foot supermarket that is enjoyed by the Greater Brattleboro community, member and non-member alike.

This afternoon I attended a talk on the topic on urban food and social justice.   Food is a complex subject, that’s for sure, with many ways of looking at the issue.  It seems to me that often the idea of health food has more to do with process than product.  If someone buys potatoes from a local organic farmer, and then makes french fries, the end product may be similar-to-identical in nutritional value to the same thing purchased at the local McDonalds.  In an end-product-only view both sets of french fries are equally unhealthy.  But when you look at the whole production change, the impact of the locally grown variety has many benefits over the mass produced variety.  Including local stewardship of open space, support of local business, reduced environmental impact and preparation of your own dinner. The value of local agriculture on quality of life in a community is often undervalued — if we truly care about health then we need to raise our appreciation of this importance. 

Dwight Hall – Header – Urban Food Justice Panel Discussion

Ian Marvy, Added Value, Brooklyn; Jacquie Berger, Just Food, New York City; and Billy Bromage, Harvest Haven, New Haven.
Learn about food access, nutrition, and affordability, as well as efforts to improve food justice in New Haven and New York. Cosponsored by Dwight Hall.