Local Organic Elephant

The December CGFC board meeting was a watershed moment for the board. Lindsay Record, executive director of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, was on hand to discuss what the organization is about and some of their recent work.

She focused on " Buy Fresh Buy Local Central Illinois," a program to promote locally produced food, expand markets for local producers and increase availability of fresh foods in Central Illinois. ISA has started two branches of this program, one in Springfield where they are based, and the other in Bloomington. Lindsay is hoping to expand the program to include Champaign-Urbana. Please see their website to find out more about the campaign.

We asked Lindsay to present at the meeting because we're grappling with our ends policy that reads: our local food chain is more equitable, robust and environmentally sound. This is what we'd like to see, and we're exploring what role Common Ground can/should play. And it's daunting, quite frankly. Where do we start? What IS our local food chain? What's "equality?" Who defines "environmentally sound?"What's already strong? What are we missing?

Just starting to answer these questions just leads to more questions. But the point is, we have to start somewhere. Like eating an elephant, someone said, you just have to take the first bite and go from there. Lindsay gave us an overview of some of the programs she's working on and what else is happening around the state.

But what was even more interesting was what some of our co-op members came to the meeting looking for. Although I wish we all could have stuck around longer to find out more, it seems clear that more people are looking for more local food sources. There is a market, but we need producers. In February we'll hear from some producers about the challenges of small organic farming. Please come and join the discussion.