This weeks readings reframed “the local food movement,” a phrase we all have been buzzing about since the beginning. Previously I saw the local food movement as simply a movement that encourages eating local. I pictured a simple, healthy food system in which a farmer hands a consumer some produce and that was it. I now understand that to fully grasp what this phrase suggests, my mental picture must zoom out to see the whole picture, of whole communities and their many variables.

The local food movement encompasses local food in addition to local community members, local policy, local farms, the local narrative, and the whole local ecosystem at large. To address the issue of power being in the hands of few, we should focus our energy on the local level and make change from the ground up. For so long we have focused on the economics and politics of large-scale global markets. Ammons suggests, “policy at its best is influenced by and reflects culture change happening at the grassroots level” (7). We must work our way up by starting local and slowly shift our focus to state, federal and eventually global change after succeeding on a small scale.  Today global markets dictate local realities of people and place by controlling “who eats and how our earth fares” (Lappe).

Vandana Shiva takes this concept of the local food movement further and notes, “the hijacking of our food system is the hijacking of our democracy.” In order to create a fair and just food system we must start addresses the issues of people and communities. Individuals, farms, communities and their narrative are the building blocks we can use to create a better food system for all people and place.

Personally, this strategy of focusing on small scale change has not always been the way I approach problems. From a young age we are all taught to think big and to dream of changing the world. For a while fixing large global problems seemed too daunting and too difficult to tackle. I suppose the few who have control of the global market don’t want us thinking we have the power to change policy by starting on a community level. I grew to understand that the work of a few can change the lives of many. Ammons suggests that to address the wanted change of our food system, we must empower Southern women of color to become leaders, as they are the heart of the communities who are the greatest victims of our unjust food system. Although these women are the most removed and powerless in politics and economics, they have the power to drive local policy initiatives and tell the untold narratives of our food system.

Today, we recognize that the local food movement has gone leaps and bounds to reshape popular consciousness, though has not made much traction in politics or economics. Now is the time to refocus our energy on local policy initiatives in order to shake the whole food system and make food justice a global priority.