Local economies purposefully restrict the region from which we source the
goods we need.  Instead of relying on cheap transportation to import the
skills of others--in the form of products--we are required to cultivate and
nurture the necessary skills in our neighbors.  Nothing illustrates this
point more poignantly than a local food system.

The one hundred mile diet is a useful way of defining an economic region.
If no one within a hundred mile radius grows cantaloupe it is likely that we
will not be eating cantaloupe this year.  However, we need not accept this
absence as a perennial condition.  Chances are that one of our neighbors
knows a farmer or a local gardener who would be willing to plant a few
cantaloupes next year.  Local knowledge of human skills and ecological
capacity enables us to recruit others to fill gaps in the local economy

Dan Barber has taken this approach in creating menus for the Blue Hill
Restaurant (http://www.bluehillnyc.com) in New York City and Blue Hill at
Stone Barns (http://www.bluehillstonebarns.com) in Pocantico Hills, New
York.  Both restaurants seek to use the bounty of the local landscape in
their recipes.  The restaurant's menus read like a list of seasonally
available products.  Blue Hill at Stone Barns links the restaurant directly
with a working farm.  The menu is not just dictated by seasonal production,
but by the choices made on the farm.  If this year the Tuscan Black Kale is
a hit in the restaurant, next spring there will be more coming up in the
garden. The connection between the farm and the consumer, in this case the
restaurant, means a responsive organism that can change and adapt to new
demands.

How, if we are to return to a locally based food system, would it be
possible to supply the needs of the entire population?  Currently, a
significant portion of our food comes from a few very productive places.
These epicenters of food production arose from our collective decision to
base our diets on crops that grow only under certain conditions. Returning
to a more locally based diet, such as is offered by Dan Barber and Blue Hill
Restaurant, will require shifting our preferences to those crops that
traditionally sustained the inhabitants of our home places.  Yes, this means
no more avocadoes on our New England table.

Sally Fallon Morell, founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation
(http://www.westonaprice.org) argues that traditional diets, including
pasture-fed meat and animal fat, are basis of a local food economy.  Moving
forward with a more localized diet would require reevaluating our food
choices to include more products that can be produced locally from available
resources.  Along with food choices, a local food system also has to
evaluate the source of farm inputs.  Fallon Morell's diet considers animals
a valuable source of fats and proteins and the basis of fertilization for
other crops.  The diet she expounds develops both the health of individuals
and the ability of the community to sustain itself.

These traditional diets create the framework for what Anna Lappé, a founding
principal of the Small Planet Institute (http://www.smallplanet.org), calls
food democracy. With food prices spiking on the back of rising oil costs and
unsustainable agricultural choices, her new book, "Grub: Ideas for an Urban
Organic Kitchen," argues that we must return to a more sustainable,
locally-based, and organic food system in order to feed ourselves.  It is
access to the land and the means of producing healthy food people that are
the basis of democracy in any society.  Reclaiming our health and our voice
is ultimately tied to a regional food system. In addition to outlining the
advantages of an organic food system, "Grub" is a cookbook of traditional
recipes that rely on seasonal and local foods.  Scrumptious!

The E. F. Schumacher Society will be hosting Dan Barber, Sally Fallon
Morell, and Anna Lappé for the 28th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on
Saturday, October 25, 2008 at the First Congregational Church of
Stockbridge, MA.  Tickets are 25 BerkShares/Dollars and 15
BerkShares/Dollars for members of the E. F. Schumacher Society, seniors, and
students.  For more information on the event or to pre-register please visit
Small Is Beautiful, email efssociety@smallisbeautiful.org or
call (413) 528-1737.