EAT AND ACT YOUR POLITICS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 176

Hendrickson is very enthusiastic about the Kansas City project but says that, while the local community
benefits cannot be overstated, legislative and regulatory changes are necessary to create a long-lasting al-
ternative food system that serves everyone. She notes that her work with this group and others demon-
strates the tensions between creating a local food system and operating in the existing economic structures.
For instance, the expansion of the grocery market described above required significant investments both
from GNFF, which invested in infrastructure such as meat processing, distribution, and marketing, and
from Balls Foods, which not only invested in a central warehouse to store and distribute local products, but
developed significant employee education to thoroughly implement the Buy Fresh, Buy Local marketing
plan.
Hendrickson notes: “If we don't pay attention to how our economic structure currently works, without
making it more democratic and competitive, local food systems will end up the same way as our current
food system. Without thinking about how this could happen, farmers could again be at the mercy of those
with economic power. I've already heard from a small distributor who is working to integrate more local
foods into her business that the big companies 'get' that local is not just a fad. But they are going to ad-
apt local—or green—to their way of doing business, like buying farmland and hiring farmers to produce.
Now, how is that going to be fair? It might be affordable, but will it be fair? And will those who produce it
get to eat it? Geography alone doesn't make a fair, affordable, democratic and green food system.”
Scott Cullen, executive director of Grace Communications Foundation, who works extensively with or-
ganizations and foundations on food-related issues, sums it up. He says that food is “one of the defining is-
sues of our age because of the impact its production has on our air, water and health.” He observes, “Good
food is starting to percolate in all sorts of surprising places and is such a powerful social-change vehicle
because everyone eats. Food really does bring people together.”
However, Cullen cautions: “Regionally produced food must be more than just a luxury; learning about
it and producing it must be part of our lives, our communities, and our schools. The elephant in the room
is always the perverse federal policies that set up such an uneven playing field and incentivize mostly the
wrong things. In my mind, we need to build the political power to take the Farm Bill apart and completely
rethink federal food policy. The food movement needs to get much bolder, more ambitious and to really
become a movement that builds political power for change. Eating our politics is a first step; we need to
take the second step and take political action, too.”