Food for Thought: How Local Food Builds the Local Economy

In a recent post from Citiwire.net, David Cieslewicz, former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, provides an intriguing analysis of the economic impact of buying local. He explains how purchasing locally-grown and processed food reduces our carbon footprint as well as directly benefiting the local economy.

What can cities do?  In Madison, the city allows up to a 5% premium for all purchase for vendors within the city.  Seattle has set a goal of getting 25% of their food locally and is developing plans to back up that goal.  Cieslewicz points out that in order to reach such goals we have to work on all aspects of the food infrastructure and distributions systems, so that they work well and provide support for smaller scale, local food enterprises.

Here in Lexington we have robust farmer’s markets, farms with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) agreements, Local First Lexington, and the beginning of work with major institutions on shifting their purchasing to include more local vendors of food and other materials and services.   We need to keep building on these early efforts and raise awareness of this important aspect of economic development.