Vision

This was published in the June 18, 2020 edition of The Fish Wrap

At RLF, we have a vision for what a decentralized food system would look like. Our current food system is organized from the top down, with government regulation and huge corporations at the top. Individuals and communities are merely consumers of the products of this system rather than active participants. Having no agency in the food system makes consumers vulnerable to system breakdown at higher levels. Our vision is for individuals in our community to have agency and be active participants in their food system. What would that look like?

A decentralized food system should be co-ops of the local people without the government overreach, subsidies, and insurance that dictates how we produce our food.  Organizations like this already exist.  For example, neighborhood associations, CSAs, farmer’s markets and electric co-ops.  As Einstein said “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  As the world descends into chaos, we turn to each other and our community to organize solutions at the local level.

At the village level, this could mean shared gardens, orchards, cannery, grocer and food waste collection. At the township level, it could mean broiler and laying hen flocks, ruminant pastures and larger scale veggie plots. Next comes the county level with seed plots, a surplus collection and redistribution center and feed and grain mills. Surplus could then be exchanged with cities for needed resources.

At the most basic level, it’s your neighbor borrowing an egg from you to make a birthday cake without having to run to the store. This sharing and mutual support could be organized from the bottom up, with those two neighbors starting a shared backyard garden and chicken coop and building from there! Imagine a family meal where all of the food was sourced locally!