Local Initiatives

When the English arrived in Massachusetts nearly 400 years ago, the first residents, native peoples from a variety of Indian tribes, had a working food system composed mainly of gathering, growing, and hunting. Edible plants, roots, herbs, fruits, berries, fish, game, and corn, beans and squash (the “three life-giving sisters’) made up most of the local food supply and diet. Today, the food system is not so simple. Complex food production, processing, distribution, and related technology in the last fifty years have fostered more changes in food systems around the world than have occurred during nearly all of the four centuries before this period. Today the idea of a “local food system” means different things to different people. “It’s how we feed ourselves,” says farmer David Inglis. To grower Don Kelly, “imported food” characterizes our Massachusetts food system. For Trudy Ames, working mother, “local food system” means providing her family’s meals: “I look for clean, fresh food. But it has to be affordable and I have to be able to make a balanced meal out of it.”

While the U.S. boasts the most affordable food in the world, there are danger signs in our food system. Each year farmers in our region grow and produce a remarkable bounty of food. Yet, Massachusetts, like many northern states, is almost entirely dependent on distant sources of food. We import 85% of the food we eat in the Commonwealth. Yet we are losing farmers and the know how to grow our food. Rising costs for farmers, federal farm policies that favor corporate agribusiness, and unrelenting land use pressures ensure that farmers find it more lucrative to sell their land than to farm it.

During the last several years community members have come to recognize that small, working farms are essential for fresh and healthy food as well as for a healthy local economy, environment, and community. As a result farmers and community groups are working directly together to build local food systems that best serve these shared values and needs.