Every time I hear people complain about situations beyond their control, like the global banking crisis, the health insurance crisis, the food safety crisis, and so on, I try to imagine what a LOCAL solution to the problem might look like, a solution we could put faces to, of people we know in our communities, providing goods and services we would otherwise obtain from a global industry.It hasn't been that long since a large portion of a family's provisions came from local sources. In the Central Rocky Mountains, where I live, supermarkets came to town only after WWII, in the late forties and early fifties. We've enjoyed the conveniences and apparently declining costs of a global factory farming and food processing system for little more than half a century now, and the hidden costs of this unsustainable system are becoming more and more apparent: Severe health problems in humans and in the animals raised for human food, Poisons sprayed on our food crops, and these food crops being genetically modified to survive applications of poison, intended to kill pests and weeds. How can we believe these poisons and genetic modifications won't harm us?
Enough is enough. So what do you do? Must everyone grow a garden in their backyard? Well, not exactly. Many people are already choosing organic produce in their supermarkets, even though there is a degree of "sticker shock" at the checkout. They want healthier food for their families. Each time they make this choice, they are voting for better quality food, and gradually, growers are listening. More and more farmers are seeing other choices themselves, and are leaving the factory farm industry, to convert their soil back to organic, to work with nature instead of against it, to start CSA's (community-supported agriculture, or subscription farms), and to develop local markets for their products. Join a CSA. Buy organic produce from Farmers Markets near you. Find something YOU enjoy growing, making, or baking, something everyone will want.
I have long enjoyed baking bread and brewing beer in my kitchen, and giving these treasures as gifts to my friends. Some of these friends are farmers, raising animals for meat, eggs, growing vegetables and salad greens year-round in greenhouses, roasting organic coffee beans from Mexico and Brazil, making bar soap from local resources, and so on. They sometimes give me some of what they produce. Pleasing them with my bread and beer makes me want to constantly improve my skills, and we are all happily "gifting" each other with things we would otherwise be buying from a factory far, far away, where performing for Wall Street is more important than improving quality for its customers.
This is why I "choose" to seek out local providers for everything possible. These choices create local jobs, seek quality before financial gain, and build real bonds of trust that create solid, exuberant community.
Choose local whenever YOU can, and find a new world right outside your back door. We'll keep an ongoing list of LINKS in the right sidebar, to help you find your way. WE will be an expanding band of brainstormers with solar-powered flashlights to help find our way to a fine future. Welcome!
