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How Available is Local Food

Posted at 2:30 PM on January 30, 2008 by Margaret Hochla (2 Comments)

As I try to get our family eating at the 80% level in local foods, I have revisited some of the reasons that I first became committed to this process.

I became involved in the founding of our local food cooperative, Oklahoma Food Cooperative, oklahomafood.org, through a concern about feeding the hungry in our area. I wasn't really thinking about local foods in the context of healthy eating. I was thinking about local foods being easily available, accessible and economical for the poor and hungry.

Through the cooperative we have an option each month to donate for food for the poor. We have food delivery to the poor once a month and operate a food pantry and garden in the spring and summer.

I seem to find that those who are able to make use of our cooperative are mostly well-educated, mobile, and articulate persons of adequate to more-than -adequate financial means. I am grateful to have these committed individuals participating. They are the life-blood of the process. They supply vision, volunteer hours, monetary donations and much more.

Is there something more that can be done to make the dream of available, accessible and economical local food for the poor and hungry a reality? Does it matter?

Comments (2)

Back in college I worked for a non-profit in CA that was primarily focused on creating local organic gardens in abandoned lots in urban areas. We assigned plots to local residents and charged 8 dollars a month for water and provided free manure and compost (the manure we got from local farms and the compost we made from collecting mulch gardeners who ground up their clippings). The only stipulation we made was that everything had to be grown organically. It provided low income families and senior citizens with limited income access to fresh fruit and veggies and low cost.

The bonus about this is that the people who own the land have to otherwise pay money for weed abatement to meet city codes. By letting us use the land for free they saved money.

But by far the best thing we did was start a curriculum in inner city charter schools where we actually created an organic garden on-site and taught children to garden. The children are calmer and more focused by the experience anf they are excited to eat what they grow. Best of all we would harvest their crops - carrots, zuchinni, tomatoes, flowers, eggplants, squash- at after school sales where their parents could buy them for cheaper than grocery store prices - thereby providing low income families with cheap organic produce AND getting their children excited about organic eating, environmental stewardship and productic habits in an otherwise dreary inner city environment.

These things dont cost a whole lot of money to start - mostly volunteer time, seeds, convincing people in communities and schools and forging local alliances (for garden supplies, manure, compost, etc.) But the benefits are tremendous.

Posted by Yooli | February 25, 2008 2:26 AM

WOW! How did you get started? I'd love to do something like that...

Posted by Jennifer | March 1, 2008 9:19 PM