Local Food Systems
Food system refers to how food is produced and reaches consumers, and consumer food choices. It subsumes the terms ‘food chain’ and ‘food economy’, which are both too narrowly linear and/or economic. The food system can be broken down to three basic components: biological, economic/political, and social/cultural. The biological refers to the organic processes of food production; the economic/political refers to institutional moderation of different group's participation in and control of the system, and the social/cultural refers to the "personal relations, community values, and cultural relations which affect peoples use of food."
Local food systems are an alternative to the global corporate models where producers and consumers are separated through a chain of processors/manufacturers, shippers and retailers. They "are complex networks of relationships between actors including producers, distributors, retailers and consumers grounded in a particular place. These systems are the unit of measure by which participants in local food movements are working to increase food security and ensure the economic, ecological and social sustainability of communities."
Read more about this topic: Local Food
Famous quotes containing the words local, food and/or systems:
“[Urging the national government] to eradicate local prejudices and mistaken rivalships to consolidate the affairs of the states into one harmonious interest.”
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“This is the only “wet” community in a wide area, and is the rendezvous of cow hands seeking to break the monotony of chuck wagon food and range life. Friday night is the “big time” for local cowboys, and consequently the calaboose is called the “Friday night jail.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)