[Community_garden] Local Food Challenges

[Sharon Gordon]

Here are some Local Food Challenges going on around the world.  I was
thinking that people with allotments/community garden plots or a home
kitchen garden would have a great advantage in this sort of the challenge.
Is anyone's allotment group, community garden plot, or council thinking of
doing this type challenge in 2007?  I am thinking that it might be an
opportunity to increase the skills of diverse plantings and also timing
crops to produce more steady yields than all at once yields.  And likely
there could be a great deal of sharing of seasonal recipes.  Most of these
are 100 mile/160 kilometre challenges.  However I have read that a local
food challenger in the UK figured out that from a sustainability standpoint
it would be best if food came from within 12 miles/19 kilometres.

For this year there is the opportunity to try a local Fall Harvest meal as
noted in the
http://100milediet.org/thanksgiving/ below.


In October 2006 a number of people in Mendocino Co, CA, USA are challenging
themselves to eat as much of their food locally as possible.  Here's a blog
for people in the Willits area
http://www.relocalize.net/blog/42
and people can sign up with Jason Bradford to participate:
jason at redinet.org

Willits also has a number of other ongoing local food projects.
www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/

Anderson Valley  is keeping up with events, restuarants serving local foods,
and stores with local food.
http://www.coastlocalize.org
People are celebrating with local food potlucks, harvest festivals, and
workshops.
They also have a list of challenge ideas for the month
http://www.coastlocalize.org/html_pages/October_Challenge.html

San Franciso did theirs earlier in the year during May.
http://www.locavores.com/
http://www.wisefoodways.com/
One of their members created a local food cookbook called
Full Moon Feast
http://www.wisefoodways.com/moons/
Here's a radio interview with the author
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/745


The group also developed a local food wheel
http://www.localfoodswheel.com/
If your group decides to a food wheel I'd recommend a few differences:
1) Make it larger.  (Also plan to redo your wheel in a year or two to
incorporate the improved access to local food that usually results from
localization efforts.) This group did incorporate a rotating ring to provide
info and reduce the size of the wheel.
2) Make rings on the wheel for the various categories of food such as dairy,
fish/aquatic, fungi, fruits, grains, nuts and seeds, meat, vegetables
3) Consider if it would help to divide each month in half to more clearly
show what is available at any given time.

In Canada Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon did a 100 mile diet from Spring
2005 to Spring 2006.  They had a real struggle at the start, and a much
better time when the farmer's markets were in abundance.
http://100milediet.org/home/
They are encouraging people to try a 100 mile Thanksgiving or Fall harvest
feast.
http://100milediet.org/thanksgiving/
A group in Vancouver has a blogspot to organize theirs.
http://100milethanksgiving.blogspot.com
and workshops this week  100milethanksgiving at gmail.com

For Local Food Challenges in other locations see
http://100milediet.org/home/
http://www.relocalize.net

If you know of other Local Food Challenges or help start one yourself,
please add to this thread.

Anyone participating in your local challenge or the international
Thanksgiving/Fall Harvest one at
http://100milediet.org/home/ ?

Sharon
gordonse at one.net