The 4th Annual Love Local event here at the Kearsarge Food Hub focused on folks in the middle of the food chain. Through short videos and live Q&A, we learned about food system organizations who are working to move food throughout our communities and build bridges between food producers and the community at large.
Photo from Food Connects
In many ways, this difficult, often unseen work in the middle of the food chain is at the heart of a resilient local and regional food system, and yet faces many challenges. There are things we can all do to help because, at the end of the day, these issues affect us all (we all need to eat, right?!), and we believe becoming informed is one important step. That’s why we create Love Local each year and offer it to our community free of charge!
To everyone who joined us for the event, thank you so much for sharing your evening with us! If you missed it, fear not! All the videos and the full recording of the event are now up and ready to watch any time.
Check out the full recording and all the individuals from this year’s event!
“I’m so glad I tuned in. This has been wonderful. I learned a great deal. So appreciate all of you.”
What we learned together at Love Local is our farmers and fishers need us, our food system needs our support, and the problems we face can only be solved by working together. The need to invest in our local and regional food systems is greater than ever.
We explored many of the challenges and threats against our local and regional food system, but pushed back against the notion that this means these systems are not viable.
The truth of the matter is, the global, industrial-scale food system has the illusion of viability, but is far, far from it.
Monocropping, heavy machinery, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are destroying our lands, and polluting our waters. Billions of dollars of American taxpayer money are going to subsidize a few crops that make highly processed foods that are making us sick.
Supply chain disruptions from things like global pandemics, climate disasters, and workers strikes all actively threaten our ability to potentially access foods from this system of global imports.
The list of the detrimental effects of this system goes on and on. Needless to say, none of this is viable. None of this is working.
So are the critical alternatives found in local and regional food systems viable? We think so. Do they need support to be viable? Absolutely.
This is where true Community Supported Agriculture comes in, and it’s more than buying a CSA box from your local farmer (though that’s certainly a part of it). There are so many ways we can participate in building a food system that truly serves us, so many ways we can support the folks who grow and make and distribute our food. From policy work, to shopping locally, to sharing this Love Local video playlist with your networks, we all have a role to play!
“Thank you for another great event educating us all on all aspects of the local food system.”
This year’s Love Local reminded us there are incredible organizations doing critical work to change the game, recentering care for each other and care for the land in their efforts. Working in the middle of the food chain is NOT easy, but it is absolutely essential if we are to build bridges between food producers and the wider community, and create a different kind of food system that actually works for us.
We are so grateful to our featured organizations for sharing their stories and time with us last night, and we encourage you to continue following their amazing work!
