To Build a Community Food Web

In our last episode we explored the challenges that a global food system can have for local communities.  On this episode of Root Words we’ll talk with Ken Meter, president of Crossroads Resource Center and Philip Ackerman-Leist farmer, author, and Vermont Farmers Food Center board member, as we explore the concept of a community Food Web and the benefits of this local alternative.

To start us off, let’s go back to our conversation from the last episode with Ellen Kahler, Executive Director with Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, and member of the Governor’s Commission on the Future of Vermont Agriculture, where she helped create Vermont Farm to Plate, the state’s food systems development plan.  

Ellen says that the Covid-19 pandemic caused major disruptions in the fragile global food system. 

Creating an alternative supply chain will need to be a community effort played out region by region, but communities don’t need to feel isolated while doing this work.  Food systems analysts like Ken Meter can help provide perspective.  In 2019, Ken conducted and wrote VFFC’s Market Study which helped guide its strategic planning in 2020.

Ken Meter is the president of Crossroads Resource Center, a non-profit organization that works with communities to foster democracy and local self-determination. His local economic analyses have promoted local food networks in 140 regions, 40 states, two provinces, and three tribal nations.  His recent book, Building Community Food Webs, is an inspiring collection of stories about how communities transformed their food systems and local economies.   

A community food web builds health, wealth, connection, and capacity within the local community.  

Ken believes that a community food web is largely a relational network, and that the strength of these relationships relies on trust. 

Philip Ackerman-Leist is a farmer, former food systems professor, VFFC board member, and author of Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems.

While working with partners in the food web, Philip puts his faith in trust.

Tension between available resources and the vision for recreating a relational food web can create slow, stable, and resilient change, but tension between communities of people in a food web can increase inequity and erode trust.  

Ken Meter feels that the food system we have now creates wealth for some at the expense of others, but a relocalized community food web can be a vehicle for restoring trust and addressing injustice.   

On the next episode of Root Words we’ll take a closer look at the filaments that bind a community food web as we explore Restoring Relationships. 

This episode was produced by Stephen Abatiell and Julia Anderson. 

Special thanks to Ellen Kahler, Ken Meter, and Philip Ackerman-Leist.

To learn more about Ken Meter’s work check out Crossroads Resource Center at www.crcworks.org 

This Root Words series has been underwritten by Windswept Farm and Rutland Fluoride Action. 

 

Barry Cohen of Windswept Farm strongly supports VFFC and is very encouraged with the Food Hub plan. Barry says, “My farm as well as my partner, The Squier Family Farm, expect to use the food hub facilities with it benefiting our process and profit.”

 

The folks at Rutland Fluoride Action are dedicated to ending fluoridation of the Rutland City water supply, learn more at RutlandFluorideAction.org.

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