What's in Store for 2010? More Local Food

NOTE: A version of this post first appeared on our local sister site, The Dirt on Green. 

2009 is in the books, but as we look forward to the tweens, one trend that will likely carry over from the '90s and the aughts is the increase in the buying and selling of local food. Back in October, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the number of farmers markets in the US increased by 13 percent -- one of the biggest increases in recent history. The USDA table above shows the number of farmers markets in the country over the past 15 years. 

It's not just farmers markets that have increased in the past year; small, independent farms have cropped up too. Marion Nestle describes the phenomenon:

"The back-to-the land movement has loads of people buying local food, choosing foods produced under more sustainable conditions and growing their own food. The number of small farms in America increased last year for the first time in a century. Seed companies cannot keep up with the demand. It will be fun to follow what happens with this trend."

-Mark

Creating Jobs & Community Gardens in Cincinnati

I'm a big fan of audio slide shows. This one from NPR's Latino USA is a little light on photos, but it does a good job describing a new program in Cincinnati that converts empty city lots into community gardens.

Faced with a dwindling population of nearby farmers, Cynthia Brown, the director of Cincinnati's Findlay Market, applied for and received a $219,000 USDA grant and created the Cultivating Healthy Entrepreneurs and Farmers (CHEF) program. "Ohio alone loses 1,000 family farms a year to agribusiness and people selling out to developers, so we need do something to keep fresh food in the city," Brown says.

-Mark