1. What does the term “local food system” mean to you?
For most participants, a local food system means food that is produced, processed and accessible locally.
2. In what ways do you or could you contribute to the development of more sustainable food systems?
As consumers, buy local as much as possible.
As citizens,
-get political locally to preserve land for agriculture. e.g. Check out land trusts
-get political and object to the current globaization of the food system
Campaign or get involved in other ways to see that children learn about the origin of their food and how it can be produced.
Set up food coop stores.
3. If Alberta were to become food self sufficient within 5 – 10 years, what major changes would have to take place?
More arable land needs to be preserved for agriculture
More food would need to be processed locally, as well as grown and produced locally.
More support would need to be provided for small farmers instead of supporting and subsidizing factory farms.
We need to ensure that every one receives a living wage for their work, so they can afford to purchase local food.
Our government would need to develop a national food policy to ensure food security.
Our local and provincial governments would need to develop land use policies to preserve more land for agriculture.
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2 comments:
While the local food movement has much appeal for me environmentally, I have concerns about the impact on poor nations of a decline in our food imports, especially of near-staples such as bananas, rice and coffee. Fair trade is based around import/export. I think that the scope for moving toward an equitable global market is reduced if we disengage from it.
Isn't Alberta a net food exporter? Self-sufficiency would certainly require a shift in production to serve local markets before foreign, vegetable and fruit markets rather than primarily mass grain crops, etc.
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