Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Guest Column: Local food comes of age

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2008

By RICH PIROG, Leopold Center associate director

My 18-year journey at the Leopold Center has tracked many changes in our food system. In early 1990s, the Center focused primarily on agricultural production and the health of the land. When we convened workshops with our Iowa partners, we gave little thought to where the food we were serving came from or how it was grown. The systems thinking and approaches we took were focused on the farm operation and not well connected to the people in Des Moines, Denver or Denmark who were eating the food our farmers produced.

The local food movement that began in the late 1980s on the east and west coasts came to Iowa by the early 1990s, as farmers looked to sell directly to a number of different market venues. By 1995 we saw our first community supported agriculture enterprise; the number of farmers markets increased sharply; and more farmers knocked on the doors of restaurants, hotels and educational institutions to sell local food. The Leopold Center began serving Iowa-grown food at our events, and many of our organizational partners began efforts to connect farmers and eaters across the state.

As we moved into the new century, our local food work evolved from building awareness through all-Iowa meals and small pilot projects to funding transferrable models to increase local food commerce that would benefit and be supported by farmers, consumers and the communities in which they lived. We also began to compare and contrast conventional and local food systems through our work on food miles, place-based foods, farm-to-college projects and ecolabels.

The last several years have brought increased interest and demand for local foods with perceived health or environmental benefits. Who would have thought 15 years ago that local foods would make the cover of Time magazine, or that the newly coined term locavore would be voted “word of the year” by the American Heritage dictionary? Who would have thought that national and global players in the food system such as Wal-Mart, SYSCO and Sodexho would be seeking to buy local and regional foods? Who would have thought that we would need more rather than fewer farmers to meet this demand?

The past several years also have brought heightened attention and headlines about climate change, rising rates of obesity and type II diabetes in children and adults, and concern about the safety and sources of our food. These issues, along with a shaky economy, have Americans watching their pocketbooks, yet paying more attention to the impacts their food choices have on their health and that of the planet.

This attention has brought many questions about local foods to the public forefront. Do these foods have positive economic benefits for farmers and local communities? Do these foods provide health benefits when they are incorporated into a balanced diet? Are food safety, security and environmental benefits associated with increasing purchases of these foods?

Preliminary research by Iowa State University scientists has shown clear local economic and community benefits to increased local foods commerce. In 2006 the Leopold Center asked ISU researcher Dave Swenson to examine the economic impact in Iowa if residents were to eat five daily servings of fruits and vegetables that were supplied for three months of the year by Iowa farms. According to his report, the "five-a-day" scenario would sustain (either directly or indirectly) $331.2 million in total economic output, $123.3 million in total labor income and 4,484 total jobs in Iowa. Compared with existing production, its net impact would be $302.4 million in total new industrial output, $112.6 million in labor income and 4,094 jobs.

Many questions remain unanswered, however, as to the health, food safety, and environmental benefits of these foods. There are few available research studies that shed adequate light on these issues. The Leopold Center must play a pivotal role in conducting research and convening experts on the health, safety and environmental impacts these foods play in our lives and world.

Recent Italian research in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that Italians eating a well-balanced omnivorous diet will improve their personal health and reduce environmental impact compared to their current diet. Such research suggests a link that Aldo Leopold often implied in his writings; namely, the intrinsic connection between health of the land and health of the biotic community.

But the Center cannot stop there. A more sustainable food system must account for its social and environmental costs, and have healthy, nutritious products available to everyone. The Kellogg Foundation and the Wallace Center for Sustainable Agriculture suggest a food system that provides healthy, green, fair and affordable food to all.

The Center must reach beyond the laudable goals of natural resource protection and farmer profitability to examine realistic scenarios in which healthy foods are produced and supplied in a manner where everyone involved in its production, processing, packaging, transport and consumption is treated fairly. The food must be available and affordable to all cultures and walks of life, not just those of us who have adequate disposable incomes to enjoy the bounty of foods available.

Is this a pipe dream? We at the Leopold Center don’t think so. As Wendell Berry said in his poem Work Song, part 2: A Vision, “this is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.”

Look for the Center to work hard to make this dream a reality.

Reference

Baroni, L., L. Cenci, M. Tettamanti, and M. Berati. 2007. Evaluating the environmental impact of various dietary patterns combined with different food production systems. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 61, 279-286.

 

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2008