History of the Local Food Movement
The Local Food Movement is a relatively new player on the global stage. In many ways, its history is almost more the history of how we moved away from it to a global economy.
History of the Local Food Movement
Local Food is not so much a new idea that is seeking its place on the stage of history. There was a time when local food was not only the preferred method of producing food for consumption, it was the only way. For the majority of human history, perishable foods were obtained locally. The plantation economy of Colonial America gives a perfect example of this. Although many of the other items used on the plantation were imported from England, everything that was used to feed the inhabitants was grown, raised, and processed right on the plantation.
As people eventually began to reach a stage where they were able to produce excess food or more food than was needed to feed the local population, the distribution of the excess to other regions for profit began. Advances in technology helped make this possible. These advances included transportation that could move the food from place to place faster and in bulk. They also included packaging and processing advances that made food last longer. Refrigeration made it possible to transport produce and perishable food without processing.
A gradual change took place from a local food economy to a regional one and then on to an international one. It was the time of the grocery store with its shelves stocked with the produce of the entire world. The food was inexpensive and easily stored and prepared. It was ironic that even foods grown in local areas would log thousands of miles through the transportation network to reach the processing plants. More miles would be added to the distribution centers and even more miles added to bring the food back for sale in the local region where it was grown.
This system made food so easily and readily available that people were slow to find fault with it. The only thing that was needed was money to make a purchase and the food of the world was on your table. Eventually, people did begin to question this system. It was the questions that marked the birth of the local food movement. The questions were related to the environmental impact of the whole distribution network. The local economic impact was questioned. People began to become more aware of what they were giving up in the way of nutrition and even the cultural identity of their own region and its food.
Strongly influenced by a handful of people who were most definitely thinking out of the box such as E.F. Schumacher, people began to question the system and look for alternatives. The idea of returning to the past became attractive. The local food movement is not an ultra conservative lunatic fringe. It is not advocating a return to a time when starvation was a constant danger and it is not against the sharing of the resources of one region with another that is in dire need. The history of the Local Food Movement has shown it to be simply a process of separating what is good and beneficial with progress from what is really doing harm.