Sustainability impact is one of the five themes of the course ‘Origin Food: a Market for Identity’ (see my earlier post for more info). Surfing on internet, looking for some empirical material on the importance of local food for local economies, we came across the work of Ken Meter, president of the Crossroads Resource Center:
Crossroads Resource Center, a non-profit organization, works with communities and their allies to foster democracy and local self-determination. We specialize in devising new tools communities can use to create a more sustainable future.
Ken Meter is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the United States. His work integrates market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns. As president of Crossroads Resource Center in Minnesota, Meter holds 39 years experience in inner-city and rural community capacity building.
As documented ath the site, Ken Meter has promoted 45 local food networks in 20 US-states and one in Canada. He has thus built a record on building local food communities and its impact on local economy. In an interview published in three part on You Tube, he shares his vision and experiences on ‘ Building a local food economy’: see part I, part II, part III. At the CRC website also an example presentation of Ken Meter on the ‘Growth in local food economies‘ in the USA. An eye-opener to all of us knowing that the USA is the worlds largets food exporting country, but actually has to import food to feed their own residents as Ken Meter says. Anyway, local food seem to be booming in the USA, the internet is loaded with initiatives, as was already documented in the posts of our collegue Petra Derkzen at this blogsite.
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 