BEFORE2030 - A LIVABLE FUTURE For people, planet, and all life
RELOCALIZE THE FOOD SYSTEM WORLDWIDE (Encourage locally sourced lifestyle)
What is a local food system? “Local and regional food systems” refers to place-specific clusters of agricultural producers of all kinds – farmers, ranchers, fishers – along with consumers and institutions engaged in producing, processing, distributing, and selling foods. (USDA report).
Shouldn’t food be everywhere? By re-localizing the food system worldwide, food is everywhere and will not need to be shipped from thousands of miles away, reliant on other lands, as it is now. This will surely encourage every country to treasure their arable lands and water systems while appreciating where their food originates.
According to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission Greater Philadelphia Food Study- 2010 (DVRPC), 6% of the area’s food is grown within the 8 counties surrounding Philadelphia. Does that sound like food security to anyone?
This area food system was a $49 billion business annually and includes: transport, refrigeration, growing and processing, restaurants, beverages, accounting, law, contracts, machinery, tools, etc., and many other things like training, culinary, land and real estate business. It follows that food security would be enhanced, facilitates economic development, job creation, community building, food growing knowledge increased locally, and possibly a health improver.
Motivating factors might be: Climate change impacts, fossil fuel reduction, increased sustainability, soil and land preservation, may improve worldwide water quality and availability, reduces carbon footprint, may help increase social justice, reduce deforestation and make regions more resilient.
This may facilitate more ‘direct to consumer’ (DTC) sales, which currently increase year after year, compensating farmers better and getting more nutritious product to citizens. Of course, this would need to be established in an organic, regenerative agriculture system, unlike today’s agricide model. (More on this under: Reduce Agricide, etc.) There was a report called, Trends in U.S. Local and Regional Food Systems: A Report to Congress, AP -068, Economic Research Service/USDA, so if the government has noticed a trend, we can surmise that this is already moving, all be it, slowly.
Also, according to Dr. Alexander Muller of TEEBAgFood and its research initiatives, “Agriculture is arguably the highest policy priority on today’s global political agenda, in recognition of its widespread impacts on food security, employment, climate change, human health, and severe environmental degradation…Food is one of the most important and pressing issues for sustainability and human wellbeing. It has major positive or (unfortunately very often) negative impacts on natural resources, it shapes the landscape worldwide, it generates income for billions of people, and it is linked with knowledge, education, social equity, and global justice. If we do not transform today’s agriculture into real sustainable food systems, we will not achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)…”
Threats to food security from the worldwide food supply chain includes: Climate change/weather disruption/drought, disrupted long-distance transport, rising costs of transport fuels and their carbon footprint, soil depletion from bad practices, deforestation, local conflict, civil rights abuses throughout the supply chain including land grabs. So, in a world moving from 8 billion to 10 billion people, trying to build a more caring society, this is surely a high priority towards a more sustainable, resilient, life-support system.
Encouraging locally sourced lifestyles for everything, goes along with this. With more time and universal basic income, I’m sure there will be a flourishing of what I call Hentrepreneurs: Household economy entrepreneurs. People making crafts, products and small businesses from locally sourced raw materials. With our new consciousness, searching for locally made products, before ordering them from far-off, will become second nature.
Further info:
Book: Rebuilding The Foodshed, Philip Ackerman-Leist
U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgFood)
https://sustainable19320.weebly.com/household-economy.html
USE UP AND DOWN ARROWS ON YOUR KEYBOARD IN 'MORE' COLUMN IF PAGES DON'T SHOW
What is a local food system? “Local and regional food systems” refers to place-specific clusters of agricultural producers of all kinds – farmers, ranchers, fishers – along with consumers and institutions engaged in producing, processing, distributing, and selling foods. (USDA report).
Shouldn’t food be everywhere? By re-localizing the food system worldwide, food is everywhere and will not need to be shipped from thousands of miles away, reliant on other lands, as it is now. This will surely encourage every country to treasure their arable lands and water systems while appreciating where their food originates.
According to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission Greater Philadelphia Food Study- 2010 (DVRPC), 6% of the area’s food is grown within the 8 counties surrounding Philadelphia. Does that sound like food security to anyone?
This area food system was a $49 billion business annually and includes: transport, refrigeration, growing and processing, restaurants, beverages, accounting, law, contracts, machinery, tools, etc., and many other things like training, culinary, land and real estate business. It follows that food security would be enhanced, facilitates economic development, job creation, community building, food growing knowledge increased locally, and possibly a health improver.
Motivating factors might be: Climate change impacts, fossil fuel reduction, increased sustainability, soil and land preservation, may improve worldwide water quality and availability, reduces carbon footprint, may help increase social justice, reduce deforestation and make regions more resilient.
This may facilitate more ‘direct to consumer’ (DTC) sales, which currently increase year after year, compensating farmers better and getting more nutritious product to citizens. Of course, this would need to be established in an organic, regenerative agriculture system, unlike today’s agricide model. (More on this under: Reduce Agricide, etc.) There was a report called, Trends in U.S. Local and Regional Food Systems: A Report to Congress, AP -068, Economic Research Service/USDA, so if the government has noticed a trend, we can surmise that this is already moving, all be it, slowly.
Also, according to Dr. Alexander Muller of TEEBAgFood and its research initiatives, “Agriculture is arguably the highest policy priority on today’s global political agenda, in recognition of its widespread impacts on food security, employment, climate change, human health, and severe environmental degradation…Food is one of the most important and pressing issues for sustainability and human wellbeing. It has major positive or (unfortunately very often) negative impacts on natural resources, it shapes the landscape worldwide, it generates income for billions of people, and it is linked with knowledge, education, social equity, and global justice. If we do not transform today’s agriculture into real sustainable food systems, we will not achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)…”
Threats to food security from the worldwide food supply chain includes: Climate change/weather disruption/drought, disrupted long-distance transport, rising costs of transport fuels and their carbon footprint, soil depletion from bad practices, deforestation, local conflict, civil rights abuses throughout the supply chain including land grabs. So, in a world moving from 8 billion to 10 billion people, trying to build a more caring society, this is surely a high priority towards a more sustainable, resilient, life-support system.
Encouraging locally sourced lifestyles for everything, goes along with this. With more time and universal basic income, I’m sure there will be a flourishing of what I call Hentrepreneurs: Household economy entrepreneurs. People making crafts, products and small businesses from locally sourced raw materials. With our new consciousness, searching for locally made products, before ordering them from far-off, will become second nature.
Further info:
Book: Rebuilding The Foodshed, Philip Ackerman-Leist
U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgFood)
https://sustainable19320.weebly.com/household-economy.html
USE UP AND DOWN ARROWS ON YOUR KEYBOARD IN 'MORE' COLUMN IF PAGES DON'T SHOW
