Chuckanut Transition's Spring Newsletter
April: May Your Foodprint Walk Lightly on Your Foodshed
From farm to table and all points in between, a 'foodshed' defines the geographic area any given community uses to produce its food. A 'foodprint' is the total acreage needed to grow food for one person. Currently, the typical person is dependent on a global foodshed and transportation that averages 1,500 miles from farm to table.(1) Food represents 21% of the average American's carbon footprint.(2)
Cornell University mapped foodsheds and foodprints to explore New York State's food system potential. They estimate that most population centers would be able to source the vast majority of their food from a 30 mile radius, and calculating for a moderate meat diet, individuals could depend on as little as 0.6 acres to grow food. Interestingly, they concluded that the population of New York City is too big and dense to be fed by the surrounding farmland even if the entire state was devoted to feeding just that one city.(3)
Here in the Samish Watershed and surrounding region, we are strengthening and increasing our local reliance on our area's foodshed to gain greater food sovereignty, security and justice, while we regenerate our soils, waters, families, communities, and wild lands.
This is why Chuckanut Transition has both initiated and amplified energy around: seed, plant and food swaps, Sustainable Samish Garden Tour, classes on gardening and food processing, environmental education, community habitat restoration projects, and increased access to affordable, healthy, local food through the Bow Little Market and its affiliated Skagit Valley Farmers Market Coalition.
Its a Rural Rhythm Revival. Lets all have some good, healthy hope as we rebuild our agrarian culture here in this beautiful fertile land that we think of as paradise.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodshed
2. page 3 of http://www.kohalacenter.org/HISGN/pdf/carbofoodprint.pdf
3. http://vivo.cornell.edu/display/Mappingfoodshedsandfoodprintstoexplorethepotentialoflocalfoodsystems
~Sarai Stevens
Newsletter Editor
April: May Your Foodprint Walk Lightly on Your Foodshed
From farm to table and all points in between, a 'foodshed' defines the geographic area any given community uses to produce its food. A 'foodprint' is the total acreage needed to grow food for one person. Currently, the typical person is dependent on a global foodshed and transportation that averages 1,500 miles from farm to table.(1) Food represents 21% of the average American's carbon footprint.(2)
Cornell University mapped foodsheds and foodprints to explore New York State's food system potential. They estimate that most population centers would be able to source the vast majority of their food from a 30 mile radius, and calculating for a moderate meat diet, individuals could depend on as little as 0.6 acres to grow food. Interestingly, they concluded that the population of New York City is too big and dense to be fed by the surrounding farmland even if the entire state was devoted to feeding just that one city.(3)
Here in the Samish Watershed and surrounding region, we are strengthening and increasing our local reliance on our area's foodshed to gain greater food sovereignty, security and justice, while we regenerate our soils, waters, families, communities, and wild lands.
This is why Chuckanut Transition has both initiated and amplified energy around: seed, plant and food swaps, Sustainable Samish Garden Tour, classes on gardening and food processing, environmental education, community habitat restoration projects, and increased access to affordable, healthy, local food through the Bow Little Market and its affiliated Skagit Valley Farmers Market Coalition.
Its a Rural Rhythm Revival. Lets all have some good, healthy hope as we rebuild our agrarian culture here in this beautiful fertile land that we think of as paradise.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodshed
2. page 3 of http://www.kohalacenter.org/HISGN/pdf/carbofoodprint.pdf
3. http://vivo.cornell.edu/display/Mappingfoodshedsandfoodprintstoexplorethepotentialoflocalfoodsystems
~Sarai Stevens
Newsletter Editor
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