Kansas City Star features our Local Food fact sheets

The Kansas City Star featured Environmental Commons' well-liked "Local Food Factsheets." The fact sheets are being sent to hundreds of organizations, universities, farmers, activists, and policy officials throughout the United States and Canada.

[excerpt:]

Healthy food resource
An environmental group that promotes supporting healthy regional food systems has released a new educational resource to raise awareness.

Locally grown food is gaining recognition as a key to sustainability, strong economies and community health. But the structures that either support or discourage local food systems receive much less attention. Local food systems simply won't be viable unless communities have a greater ability to influence policies.

The fact sheets are available from Gualala, Calif.-based Environmental Commons. Go to www.environmentalcommons.org/LocalFood.
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The full article is available on the Kansas City Star website.

Sampling of the Value and Usage of the Fact Sheets

"We would definitely like some fact sheets. We want to highlight our local products and let consumers know why it is important to support these products."

Marlene Martins, Whole Foods Market

"These are just the type of concise information sheets that we would like to display and possibly, allow patrons to pick up."

Sherry Chen, Co-Manager, Springfield, Ohio Farmers Market

"I am a certified organic producer in WV. I serve an up and coming Farmers market and a growing CSA. I would like to pass this information along to these customers."

Kathy Evans, Evans Knob Farm, West Virginia

"I am director of the Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program at the University of Missouri. We would use these sheets in a variety of settings, workshops, and events that we sponsor for producers and consumers across Missouri, including a new campaign on "Eat Well, Do Good." "

Dr. Sandy Rikoon, Professor, University of Missouri-Columbia

"We will use them at meetings of organic producers and researchers, and at field days. Thank you very much."

Kathy Bielek, Organic Food & Farming Education & Research (OFFER), Ohio State University

"I would like to use these in our school cafeterias as an educational reference for the students. We serve a large amount of LOCALLY Grown products and it would be great to offer this to them."

Chef Tim, Food Service Director, Bloomfield Public Schools, Bloomfield CT

"I'm Policy Coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council and plan to use them as part of our displays featuring the benefits of local agriculture at our conferences and workshops. "Food democracy" is a great unifying concept to present this viewpoint."

Steve Gillman, Stillwater, NY

"I run the Missoula Farm to School program, here in Montana, and think these would be great to use in the classroom or other educational opportunities that we have."

Ariel Bleth, Missoula Farm to School, Missoula, MT