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Organic Brisbane - Natural Foods Directory
Local or Community Food Systems
The term food system refers to all those processes which play a role in making available food for consumption. From growing, harvesting and packaging to transportation, marketing and selling, all these activities are parts of food systems. A food system, therefore, is compound of social, economic and natural features of a particular society.
A local food system, then, is a system wherein all these activities take place on a limited scale at the local, microcosmic level of a district or community. Though as such the history of this concept goes far back in time – indeed, some of the first food systems were local ones – in modern days local food systems have come to imply those food systems which take into account not only all those activities regarding the production, distribution and consumption of food but also those related to its disposal– i.e. to the management of that which is left over, or waste.
The smaller it gets, bigger the benefits. A local or community based food system integrates better the chain of processes in the food system so that consumers know where and how their food is raised and comes from: packaging and transportation costs, for instance, go down drastically and so does the related environmental damage. This makes a community more self-reliant and increases its food security till the point where an optimum consumption is guaranteed to all community members. Ultimately, this means that the community becomes an environment friendly, sustainable entity in sync with its ecology.
A community food system, therefore, benefits all possible shareholders in the long term welfare of the local community. In the current, so-called established system retailers and suppliers eat into farmers’ profits and consumers’ budgets. In this alternative system, however, not only go farmers get better returns for their produce, but consumers too get more value for their money. In this way, money does not leave the local, rural economy, environmental damage falls down, migration stops and, ultimately, there comes prosperity for all.
It is not, however, as easy as it sounds. Our current agricultural and retail policies favour big retailers and large farm holdings in such a way as tends to push small, community-based farms out of competition. The challenge is to overcome these forces and create a movement that brings back the emphasis on the local without jeopardising the global. The importance of community supported agricultural schemes such as box farming, farmers’ groups, consumer groups, co-ops, you-pick-it farms, farmers markets, slow food systems and so on cannot be understated.
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