Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The locavore movement is not just about better shopping,
but changing the food culture. They want us to think more
about what we buy and its consequences, to take a greater
interest in agriculture and food, to become involved in not
just what we eat but what schoolchildren eat. They want us
to mimic Transylvania by giving careful thought to the con-
sequences of our food purchases. It is not their intention that
we source all our food locally, but only a proportion of it.
With this cultural change locavores suspect that the modern
world would begin to eat a healthier diet. They may very well
be right.
Consider Will Allen, a retired professional basketball
player, who observed how some neighborhoods simply do not
have access to affordable, fresh, and healthy foods. Doing his
part to remedy this problem, he founded an organization that
constructs greenhouses where organic vegetables are grown
for the local community. This is not a business, but a nonprofit
organization whose goal is to educate people about agricul-
ture and healthy foods. In interviews with Allen and his fans
they explain that they don't promote locally grown foods for
the sake of local foods, but to help people who are unfamil-
iar with fresh vegetables to experience what cucumbers, basil,
and “real” tomatoes taste like.
Urban people's interest in where their food comes from,
and the quality of it—their worry about poisoned food,
soil loss, toxicity, etc.—is a good thing. . . . If we stick only
with the “local food” part of the movement, it's not going
to amount to much. We've got to simultaneously talk
about cultural change and land use more generally.
—Mary Berry, executive director of the Berry Center,
“Mary Berry Is Fomenting an Agrarian Revolution,”
Moyers & Company
, October 3, 2013, accessed October
6, 2013, at
ht t p://bi l l moyers.com/2013/10/03/
