Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organisations in their quest to build stronger communities.
Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalised by our current food system are charting a new path forward.
Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.
Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organisations in their quest to build stronger communities.
Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalised by our current food system are charting a new path forward.
Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.
Definitions
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. Tracking the Extractive Economy
Chapter 2. Co-Learning is Contagious
Chapter 3. Invoking Traditional Wisdom to Recover from Plantation
Agriculture
Chapter 4. Building the Capacities and Voice of Low-Income
Residents
Chapter 5. Placing Food Business Clusters at the Core of Economic
Development
Chapter 6. The Cradle of Food Democracy: Athens (Ohio)
Chapter 7. Metro-Area Farmers Need Supportive Networks
Chapter 8. Municipal Officials Collaborate to Protect Metro
Farmland
Chapter 9. Working Below the Radar to Create Networks of Green
Space
Chapter 10. Building Market Power for Farmers
Chapter 11. Shifting from “Local Food” to Community-Based Food
Systems
Chapter 12. Scale is Both the Problem and the Solution
Conclusion. Building Community Food Webs: Active Networks, System
Levers, and Business Clusters
For Further Reading
About the Author
Index
Ken Meter is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the U.S., integrating market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns. Meter has worked for fifty years in inner-city and rural community capacity building. His local economic analyses have promoted local food networks in 143 regions in 41 states, two provinces, and four tribal nations.
"Connections, Convening, Collaboration and (reclaiming) Culture are
the themes resonating through the eight stories of community food
systems skillfully woven together by Ken Meter. Building Community
Food Webs is illuminating for learning from the past and planning
for the much-needed future of food system changes."--Anupama Joshi,
Co-author, "Food Justice"; Co-founder, National Farm to School
Network; Executive Director, Blue Sky Funders Forum
"It is an excellent primer on how local food systems can stanch the
flow of wealth from rural communities and the importance of
approaching these systems as social rather than logistical."
-- "Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community
Development"
"From a hard-working visionary, Ken Meter's book is full of the
good ideas that will strengthen the next generation's work to
create food systems that foster equity and inclusivity. Ken
provides us MUCH to learn and practice."
--Alfonso Morales, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Woven through stories that stretch decades, Building Community
Food Webs gives critical insight into how communities have
transformed agriculture and food economies. With a unique analysis
of the economic landscape, Meter deftly highlights common threads
that inspire the reader with multiple pathways and
strategies."--Jeanette Abi-Nader, Food Equity Activist & Cultivate
Charlottesville Executive Director
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