Lexington, KY - Have you attended a cook-off recently, watching chef teams duke it out over portable burners (such as the Debra Hensley’s Social Stimulus event, Cooks for a Cause)? Or maybe you’ve taken a cooking class, found yourself watching Iron Chef, or just been paying more attention to labels in the grocery store and frequenting a farmers market. Welcome, my friends to the “local food movement.”
Awareness of the local food movement among Kentuckians is growing. Once the province of those thought to be “different,” the so-called eccentric locavores, the movement has acquired another label — that of the “foodie.” Obsessed with food shows and all the latest of kitchen gear — and affluent enough to enjoy wine pairings with fancy food in white tablecloth restaurants — the foodie was born.
But, as the gardener would say, let’s nip a few of those myths in the bud while acknowledging that we have a long way to go to make the local food movement mainstream. You don’t have to know that “Little Britches” and “Lazy Housewives” are not the stars of a new reality TV program but green bean “heirloom” seed varieties in order to become more aware of the local food movement’s enormous potential to improve lives and community.
First of all, why the local food movement — and why food? In brief, we were into local foods at the turn of the past century, when agriculture reigned as our primary economic development driver. Thanks to Henry Ford, we entered into the industrial age of mass production. It was largely our boys who came in from the farms to our cities and took the manufacturing jobs that, in their day, fueled the middle-class lifestyle.
Then the world changed. The middle class is now endangered, and manufacturing jobs are drying up. With a brutal recession and the disconnected dots of our community life lying in near ruins all about us, we have turned to constructing a new definition of “quality of life.” Using social media and zeroing in on what we find important in our lives, we are once again seeking meaning, which is taking form in the simple act of reaching out to one another. At its root is food — but why? Because we all eat, and because nearly every community activity since time began has centered on food — from births to coming-of-age ceremonies to funerals.
But as Mark Bomford of the Yale Sustainable Food Project has noted, while food is the convener, building community is the point of the local food movement. Moving beyond eccentric locavores and overzealous foodies, the food movement is about these community sub-movements: (1) health and wellness in caring about what you and your family eat; (2) getting food to those who have not had access, due to cost and logistics; (3) environmental stewardship, with composting and recycling taking center stage; (4) economic development in reviving the local farm and agriculture industry; and (5) food safety and security.
So, what does this mean for Lexington and the Bluegrass region? From Rona Roberts’ cornbread suppers to Debra Hensley’s social stimulus amateur cook-off, to cooking classes, to urban chicken farming, to the annual Local Food Summit, the movement is more than sprouting. It is yielding small yet viable offshoots. What is missing?
Missing is the realization of an opportunity right under our noses. Let’s explore the benefits from the perspective of our most precious citizens — our children. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture and Commissioner James Comer’s Farm to School Program is a case in point. Under new USDA funding mechanisms, six cents can be allotted to assist schools in meeting new meal standards that aim to provide children with healthier foods. Consider the scope: Kentucky schools provide around 775,000 meals each day. There are 174 districts with approximately 171 school days and an average of 4,454 students per district. If 100 districts chose to participate in the program, at 140 days with 445,400 students at six cents per student, we would yield $3,741,660 into our communities. What better path exists to health and prosperity than through use of locally grown foods?
It is also reported that a typical journey for the food we put on our table is 1,491 miles. Think of the energy savings and the boost to the local economy if we put a dent in that mileage by using local foods.
Here are a few of our ideas:
1. Urge the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government to form a local food council, as has been done in communities throughout the country. That group would be charged with the task of inventorying and overseeing the development of the the local food industry.
2. Like Louisville, do an assessment of the local food/agricultural potential in terms of dollars in economic strength.
3. Push for policy changes at the federal level, in the Kentucky General Assembly and through local city councils that will allow the local agricultural economy to flourish. For instance, more local meat processing plants — currently hampered by overregulation — would create jobs and at the same time meet food safety standards we all desire and require. The same goes for the creation of a viable and successful wine industry, starting with the 63 wineries that now dot the commonwealth landscape.
A recurring criticism of the local food movement is that it is disconnected, disjointed and a pipe dream to believe it can “feed the masses.” Those criticisms actually make the point of where we need to go. How, for instance, do we tie together into a viable distribution/storage system the farmers markets in the region? Likewise, the revival of the local agricultural economy is not touted to replace the existing food system, but only to supplement it and take its rightful place in the array of community- and prosperity-building options available to us.
Let’s embrace the local food movement. As it is said, you plant your seeds in eastern Kentucky when tree buds are the size of squirrel ears. The time is now. Let’s get going.
Sylvia Lovely and Chef Jeremy Ashby co-host Sunny Side Up Radio, Saturdays at 11 a.m. on 630 WLAP and online at sunnysideupradio.com. Email them at sylvia@sylvialovely.com and chefjashby@gmail.com.