Increasingly, people are getting savvier about how to deal with food. In our local community, more and more people are interested in sustainability, are growing good food locally, and are helping other people grow food. The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s May 2013 TV program is all about “Creating a Sustainable Local Food System.”
Three knowledgeable guests with interesting first-hand experience teach us a lot during this program:
• TJ Johnson is a former Olympia City Council member, organizer of the October 2011 Food Summit, and a vigorous participant in the local food movement. The Food Summit attracted so many pre-registrants that it filled to capacity long before the event. The Food Summit brought local people together and moved toward solutions.
• David Coppley is the Kitchen Garden Project Coordinator for Garden-Raised Bounty (GRuB), which helps our entire community, especially young people and lower-income people, to grow their own food. GRuB has an excellent reputation in our community. David’s own background with food is long and var-ied, ranging from farm labor to produce purchaser at a grocery store.
• Celeste Wade used GRuB’s services about 8 or 9 years ago to help her start growing food for her own family, and now raises a lot more food and operates a Community-Supported Agriculture entity called Crosstown Farms. Celeste’s enthusiasm is an inspiration, and she continues to reach out to people to build the movement for growing more food locally.
Our nation’s existing food system relies heavily on an industrial model with heavy use of chemicals derived from oil and natural gas. It relies upon genetically modified (GM) crops and includes other aspects that are not compatible with healthy food or healthy environment.
For thousands of years people grew food locally, so they could make relevant decisions about their food. Now the decisions are made by giant corporations without our participation, and the food is grown distantly and transported over long distances.
