There’s a thought provoking article in the July/August 2011 issue of Countryside Magazine by Gigi Stafne. (Stafne is an yerbalista wilder and borderlands woman with years of experience in the field of natural and botanical medicine.)
Her article, entitled “Homeland Food Insecurity and Down-to-the-ground Food Activism” came along just as I was wrapping up my month of local eating, and it is an excellent summation of the food and nutrition issues we face. If you can get your hands on a copy of this issue, I urge you to read the entire article.
A sidebar contains Stafne’s “30 Ways To Get Involved in the Ground Foodie Movement”, and with her kind permission, I’m including that here:
- Buy from organic farms
- Purchase food shares, join a CSA
- Get active with a local food co-op
- Visit and support farmers markets
- Eat whole foods & local produce
- Shop for value-added products
- Donate healthy food to the Food Pantry
- Serve up meals at Community Kitchens
- Transform the menu to include local food and organics
- Schools, colleges, nursing homes, employer food services
- Eat out at locavore food establishments
- Host events with local organic caterers
- Read what food bloogers are saying
- Transform your backyard: food not lawns
- Grow anarchist plots: guerilla garden
- Restore native plants
- Grow a medicinal herb garden
- Take a wild edibles or weed wealk with the local herbalist
- Volunteer to co-create gardens with kids
- Shop local, grow community economy
- Save seeds (heirloom, non-GMO, native)
- Preserve culturally diverse heritages & traditions
- Be active in the small farm revival
- Support biodiversity, organics, permaculture, biomimicry projects
- Support urban agriculture
- Volunteer at a prison garden
- Build raised beds for elderly neighbors
- Become a wild forager!
- Ensure egalitarian access to whole foods
- Join a food justice organization
