Consumers deserve credit for driving the growth in local and organic food sales.

But if we’re serious about growth on the scale we need if we want to revitalize our rural communities—and realize the potential of organic regenerative agriculture to address climate change—it won’t be enough to just buy local.

We’ll have to become more than local food consumers. We’ll have to become local food citizens.

Anthony Flaccavento, organic farmer, rural development consultant and author, started a CSA in the mid-1990s. We asked him to outline some of the progress and challenges involved in building strong local and regional food systems.

Flaccavento says we’ve come a long way. But we still have a long way to go.

To get there, we’ll need what the Green New Deal is calling for: major investment, along with policy changes that will support sustainable farming and regional food systems, while breaking the stranglehold of Big Ag monopolies that undermine farmers, rural communities and the ecosystem. 

Read ‘Progress from the Bottom Up:  How Farmers, Consumers and Value Chains Put Local Foods on the Map’

SIGN THE PETITION: Consumers Want a Green New Deal