The Local Food Revolution

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A local food revolution is quietly unfolding in our midst right here in Boulder County. It’s a revolution aimed at rebuilding this region’s capacity to feed its own people, to ensure food security and food sovereignty for all.

Anyone living in the area could scarcely have escaped noticing some of the obvious first signs of this revolution: Farmers’ markets are popping up around the county, along with roadside farmstands. More restaurants are sourcing their ingredients from local farmers and ranchers. Municipalities have been compelled to change laws to accommodate the rapidly rising citizen demand to raise chickens, goats and bees in residential backyards.

Backyard and frontyard gardens seem to be proliferating everywhere, and local fresh produce is now even being offered in many Boulder County school lunchrooms. Dozens of family farms are now offering CSAs (community supported agriculture), essentially prepaid subscriptions to a share in a season’s bounty. And plastic-covered “hoop houses” are springing up on farms and in yards as gardeners struggle to meet the challenge of extending the Front Range’s famously short growing season.

But some of the signs of this revolution are far less visible. For instance, hundreds of people have been signing up for “reskilling” classes on forest gardening, food canning and preservation, composting, vermiculture (worm ranching), seed-saving, food fermentation, greenhouse construction, aquaponics (combining aquaculture with hydroponic plant production), along with rainwater harvesting. Even more have been taking instruction in seasonal eating and cooking, as well as basic nutrition.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-4806-id-like-to-see-a-study-on-the-relative-cost-for-t.html

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1. The DIY Revolution

The real grassroots revolution of taking responsibility as individuals and communities of relearning sustainable, balanced and a good way of life, as part of nature. The only revolution that matters.