Just What Does Local Mean?

2010

Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues

Volume 25, Number 1

National Agricultural Library

Food that is locally produced, marketed, and consumed—termed “local food”—is not a particularly new concept in the U.S. food system. Local food and its proponents have origins in the “Slow Food” movement and organic agriculture, and it is common to hear arguments for a relocalization of the food system. Yet recent interest in local food suggests that the term “local” is being used in new and different ways, and by people and organizations that would have previously had no interest in movements that challenge the mainstream food system.