Want to change the food system? Here are 40 great ways everyone – from individuals to the government – can do so.
Some of my fave’s:
For individuals:
#6 Establish community canning workshops where people can work together to can food.
#8.Establish a Young Farmers Institute for the next generation of farmers.
#12 Encourage Community Fruit Tree Projects to harvest unwanted fruit, and have it juiced for sale and for fundraisers.
#13 Create a “Buy Local” label for use in retail food stores.
For municipal councils:
#18 Prioritize the use of local organic food at all city-owned events and facilities.
#23 Require the provision of food gardening space in all larger
development proposals. In smaller developments, require a development
cost charge payment to a Community Gardens Fund.
#25 Integrate ornamentals with edibles, bio-remediation, fiber and medicinal plants in city landscape planning.
#26.Establish a community-wide composting program.
For provincial/state governments:
#31 Prohibit the removal of land from the Agricultural Land Reserve without replacement with equivalent quality farmland.
#33 Remove regulatory barriers that prevent local stores from selling
locally grown dairy and meat products, and other barriers to producers
processing and distributing their products locally.
From Guy Dauncey and Carolyn Herriot via the 100 Mile Diet.
A great list and timely post — the day before Earth Day. Thank you. I support all 40, but I’m going to take a closer look at the individual actions.
When we were kids my dad grew all our veggies for winter, and my mom would ready them all for freezing-I still remember shelling buckets of peas! I wish that I could grow cucumbers like my grandma did, I can still see her cellar (one of those old dirt ones with creepy stairs and spiders) lined with jars of the most delicious pickles. My homage to them is my own vegetable garden, where my sons will find their favourites-and that they don’t come in a bright bag from Chili in the freezer. My new favourite? Lima beans-they have the nicest flavour when freash!
Wow, those are great! Thanks for sharing that. And I hope the crawling helped, and that your little earth child is going to join us soon!
I like to promote the idea of using google maps to locate local produce. I’ve set up an open collaborative fresh food map for Ireland, which has attracted a lot of views (38000).
http://siopaeile.com/blog/2008/03/fresh-food-map-for-ireland/
Unfortunately people still don’t seem to realise that they can easily add to the map themselves.
The cool thing as that indiv farmers can advertise themselves on the map and bypass local markets and retailers and sell directly to public.
With GPS devices set to proliferate in the coming years, I can easily see people stopping at farms identified on these devises and buying directly.