Group items tagged

An Indiana University study that looked at consumers who buy locally grown and produced foods through farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture programs found the venues largely attract a "privileged" class of shoppers.

Ohio still has too few farmers markets and community agriculture ventures to serve its population, according to a recent index developed by Strolling of the Heifers, a nonprofit organization in Vermont that is trying to save family farms.

"But if the community gardens, CSAs, farm-to-school programs and sustainable family farms in the Food Movement are so great why isn't everyone doing it? The simple answer is, because the rules and institutions governing our food system -- Wall Street, the U.S. Farm Bill, the World Trade Organization and the USDA -- all favor the global monopolies controlling the world's seeds, food processing, distribution and retail. This should come as no surprise, the "revolving door" between government and corporate food monopolies is alive and well, and goes back decades. But it means it's unlikely that the Food Movement's alternatives will ever become the norm rather than the alternative fringe -- unless the Food Movement can change the rules and institutions controlling our food. To do that, the Food Movement needs politicizing."