We touched on this topic in our first video conference, but I keep coming back to this idea. How important is eating local? Who does this help?*

Agyeman talks about how Alternative Food Movements, such as the local food movement, give into our corporate-dominated, capitalist food system. Producers of local foods can play into a newfound consumer demand; they advertise their products as local, and charge more. Agyeman quotes Guthman** saying, “labels [such as ‘local’] not only concede the market as the locus of regulation, but in keeping with neoliberalism’s fetish of market mechanisms, they employ tools designed to create markets where none previously existed.” Producers of local foods have created a new market for their value-added, local products.

Local food caters to middle to upper class people because of its (often) higher prices and the elitist culture of attending farmers’ markets. Lower class people cannot afford these prices, cannot take the time to go to farmers markets (which in DC, at least, are often open during the work day), and, as Guthman states in her book Weighing In, may feel uncomfortable and out of place in the farmers market setting. The local food movement also shuts out a large portion of the black and Hispanic population because these people are disproportionately living in poverty and in neighborhoods without access to local food.

Common Good City Farm, which we visited on our second fifth day, is trying to address these issues in the local food system. The non-profit urban farm is set in a historically black, lower-income neighborhood. The farm offers a CSA and allows neighbors to work at the farm for food instead of paying. The local food movement is not going to go away or change very quickly, so I believe that initiatives like non-profit urban farms or accepting SNAP at farmers markets are great ways to get the movement to serve a wider audience.

Holt-Gimenez, though he condemns the elitist, racist nature of many alternative food movements, mentions the importance of strengthening communities through local food. Interactions at the farmers markets with farmers and neighbors help build community in neighborhoods. Shoppers interact with each other and the people in their communities in a way that they would not be able to at a supermarket. Shoppers see the people producing their food and know that the dollars they spend are going towards supporting people in their area. Although local food may block out a significant part of the population, small farmers often live in poverty, and giving them business by buying their foods at farmers markets is extremely important.

My internship this summer is at Union Kitchen, a food business incubator. The founders created the Kitchen with the mission of strengthening the food community in DC. They hope to give DC food its own personality and identity. Consumers should feel pride in their food and an attachment to the place that their food was created. Often the products that Union Kitchen promotes are more expensive than comprable products you could find at the grocery store. Why would anyone struggling to make ends meet go out of their way to buy the more expensive version of a product? They wouldn’t. But upper class consumers should (and do) buy these specialty products and thus support small business owners in their community. The contradictions are tough to grapple with.

The most important part of local food is that opposes huge food corporations selling their products at supermarkets nationally or even globally. Local food is personal and often healthier and fresher than the processed, packaged foods that you find at the grocery store. I am not sure that I support local food as the solution to the issues in our food system. I do, however, have the ability to go to farmers markets and support the farmers in my area, and also support small business owners by buying their specialty goods. At the same time, however, I want to support non-profit local food initiatives like Common Good City Farm, so that more people, not just the white and elite, can have access to locally grown, fresh and healthy foods.

*Note that throughout the article I am talking about an urban, as opposed to rural, setting for the local food movement.

**I actually read Guthman’s work in a class this past fall. My professor was very good friends with her. She said that despite all of Guthman’s criticisms of alternative food movements, she still loves to shop at farmers markets and loves “local,” “sustainable” food.