This is How Local Food Systems Shine Amid Covid-19
Want to better your community but don’t know where to start? Enter It’s the Little Things: a weekly Strong Towns podcast that gives you the wisdom and encouragement you need to take the small yet powerful actions that can make your city or town stronger.
It’s the Little Things features Strong Towns Community Builder Jacob Moses in conversation with various guests who have taken action in their own places and in their own ways.
I see the community wanting to be more involved at the local level. I see corner stores and neighborhood markets adjusting to the needs of their customers. Seeing how centralized [the food system] is, we’ll continue to keep an ear open for what’s happening locally.
- Chris Temblador, Los Angeles Food Policy Council
Covid-19 has stressed every sector in the food system, disrupting the usual processes by which millions of people across North America feed themselves and their families. You’ve sensed the severity of its impact nationally, as you read about another major meat-packing plant closing. You’ve felt it in your community, too, as your virtual grocery cart sits in a five-day checkout line.
This should not surprise us: across the food system—production, processing, distribution, access—we’ve required a beautiful yet complicated web of local contributors to operate for a handful of national players. Stress a particular sector in the system’s hierarchy and, understandably, you’ll witness a national impact with little actionable feedback.
Chris Temblador and his colleagues at the Los Angeles Food Council (LAFPC) have, well before Covid-19, understood the downsides of centralized food systems, opting for local food systems that partner with local contributors to ensure Angelenos have access to healthy food—no matter their neighborhood.
Today, Chris has witnessed the fruits of the local systems he’s helped create. For example, the Healthy Neighborhood Market Network has ensured the populations most impacted by Covid-19 still have access to healthy food. And LAFPC’s Good Food for All Agenda has helped policymakers understand how, amid Covid-19, they can improve food access throughout Los Angeles County.
Covid-19 hasn’t pardoned these systems. Like their national, centralized counterparts, local players in LAFPC’s systems have, too, scrambled to serve their communities amid an ever-growing list of stressors. However, as Chris will share with you in this episode, these stressors have prompted local players to innovate, creating a stronger, more resilient food system for Angelenos in the process.
Show notes:
You—Not the Big Box Store—Have the Power to Provide Healthy Food in Our Neighborhoods
How a Beloved Corner Store in South Los Angeles Addressed Food Deserts (and Much More).
Header Image via the Healthy Neighborhood Market Network and Soto Street Market