Welcome Deborah Webb!

Here are two questions, one from a reader via email:

1. You've been at this a long time and seen lots of changes. What's your overall level of optimism about the future these days?

2. The original post about your live-blogging suggested that North Carolina is "behind" Kentucky in this area. Is that true? If so, why?

Thanks for joining us today.

Deborah will likely be posting using one of my friend's names because she's having trouble getting logged in as herself. In the meantime . . . here's another question that I just discovered.

:)

From your work with the Community Farm Alliance, what kinds of barriers do you see in rebuilding the local food systems that agroindustry are destroying?

I hope you can help us move forward on reclaiming our fresh food farming heritage.

Have you ever worked with these folks? I understand they do a good job and I'd like to see something like this here in NC.

Especially out here in the hinterlands (where you'd think we'd have more access to locally grown food - but we don't necessarily)

There are a number of concerned citizens in Orange County (home of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough) that believe we're ill-prepared for some coming macro-economic issues: spiraling energy costs, diminishing water supplies, questionable healthiness of our corporate produced food supplies.

Two general questions to kick off the discussion.

1) How do you suggest "sizing" the required food resources for a local community? Is there some way to plug-in the carrying capacity of available farm land, the anticipated growth in our local populace, the cost of energy and benefits of locally grown and transported items, etc. in order to get a handle on what it would take to produce a "balanced diet" for our local community?

2) What kind of policy can a local municipal unit, like the Town of Chapel Hill, craft to encourage locally produced and prepared foods in its extra-territorial areas (in this case, influencing Orange/Alamance and possible Durham county governments).

Thanks for participating. Good luck with the conference.

CitizenWill
there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. MLK,Jr. to SCLC Leadership Class

If the food system is broken, as we believe it to be then change will happen and the question is -- will we be able to get ahead of and shape some of that change in time that society suffers less consequences than if we do nothing and the answer to that question is Absoutley! Because there is a lot of movement in this country. People are pursuing different strategies in different places, it is local in nature and not systemic or coordinated in a way to make bigger change at the moment -- it is naescent, but that is how change starts.
We believe the solutions will be locally generated, so I am optomistic, as long as the amount of attention that food systems is receiving right now continues to grow.

A lot of our local farmers buy produce from other states so they can offer more and make your drive to their farm worth the gas money. I'm sure most of this produce is grown close enough to still consider it "buying locally", but do you see any problems with this. Anything we should look out for?

Also, a few local farms here sell beef, pork and chicken - locally grown and slaughtered. Do you have any experience with this? Again, any suggestions for someone new to buying meat locally?

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.

it seems we need to increase small-scale sustainable production, but then still have huge infrastructure plus gov policy barriers to actually creating workable local food systems. can you talk about specific programs that help build farm capacity and farm enterprise related infrastructure?

Building local food systems is not a race between states. Thjere is a lot of experimentation going on around the country, but that experimentation is organic -- it is in response to how many farms there are, what kind of farming has been the mainstay, what are the particular challenges that a region faces.
It is probably natural for folks in North Carolina to look at Kentucky because tobacco has been one of the agricultural economic engines. North Carolina is the biggest flu cured tobacco producer, Kentucky has been the biggest burley tobacco producer. Kentucky also kept track of what North Carolina was doing and thinking about tobacco settlement funds for instance.
So North Carolina and Kentucky have a lot of things to learn from each other and one of the things to learn is what is different, as well as similar. The conference can help do that, but It is for people in North Carolina to say what they want, what they think is strong in the state, what are they dissatisfied with and then whatever judgments they want to make about Kentucky is fine. If Kentucky has things to offer, we are pleased, but we are also here to learn.

I seems that one of the downsides of success for retailers like Whole Foods is that small local producers get treated the same way Barnes & Noble treats small publishers. That is, a high expectation of product and volume without a guarantee of sales. Putting their all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, is a high risk for small local farmers.

 
Stop the NC Association of Realtors
Polluting our State Legislature with money.

I've always wondered if this would work.
1. Tax cigarettes at $1 a pack, which based on this paper, would bring in about $700 million a year.
2. Use ALL that money in the form of grants to create/convert/aid family farms in becoming organic or sustainable farms.

To me, it seems this would make North Carolina a hub of organic/sustainable family farming, which in turn would seem to make it a natural place for packaging, distributing, etc.

More jobs, more farming, a solid middle class, better food, more new small and large businesses.

John Edwards is great!
- Sam Spencer, BlueNC, 7/3/07

Deborah, thanks for trying to deal with the technology! From your answers so far, I take it that you think people have to work primarily at the local level to affect policy and practices. Did I read you correctly?

Deborah has been having technical problems this morning and I'm afraid we've lost her. Sorry. There are a ton of great questions here.

Maybe when she gets home to her own computer after this weekend she can log in and respond without the pressure of a tight schedule today.

*hint hint*