Local Food: Perspectives from farmers, chefs, locavores and others

  • The Turkey Farm has a good article in their Summer 2002 edition of The Turkey Times newsletter on An easier way to food security. It’s about half way down the page, and talks about how small local farms make for better food security than large distant farms.
  • Local Food is fully discussed pro and con at the U.K.-based Reference.com article on local food, and they also have a great page on Farmers’ Markets . It is intriguing to see how many of their concerns are the same as those on this side of the pond.
  • Seasonal Chef interview with Alice Waters.
  • In Search of Food Security from the SeasonalChef.com
  • Six principles of food security
  • Cultivating Community (pdf) by Jo Barrett of King Hill Farm in Penobscot. Witeen as a presentation to a civic group, it described the many civic values that small farms generate.
  • Food Routes is “a national non-profit dedicated to reintroducing Americans to their food, the seeds it grows from, the farmers who produce it, and the routes that carry it from the fields to our tables.” Includes a vast list of links relating to local food.

About Tom Roberts

When I started attending the Brewer Farmers’ Market back in August of 1983, my sole concern was being able to sell the produce my farm was growing at a good price. After attending market for a year or two, I began to realize that how the market was organized had a great impact on my sales. And how the market was organized also influenced how it made decisions about dues, new members, what could be sold at market, and how it promoted itself—and this, too, had an impact on my sales. So I got involved in the market’s steering committee and began to understand how various market members thought the market should operate. Some wanted a market czar, some wanted everyone to be allowed to do their own thing. But everyone seemed to agree that if the market as a whole did well, then so did they.