Greetings!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Hello and welcome to my first post! As I understand, my posting “hook” is a bit different from the usual Farm To Philly postings. So let’s use this time as a “getting to know you” chit chat, shall we?

Local living has become an obsession of mine. There were several instances that led me to the Locavore lifestyle (to be discussed in future postings). But rest assured, I am here and there is nothing that I would love better than to have a vibrant, local Philly (or, should I say, Southeastern PA) economy. The more you become involved in something, the more you want to help it along. So here I am — a graphic designer and marketer by trade — trying to find a way to parlay my talents to the benefit of what I love and believe in. And all roads led to here.

My goal for these entries is to bridge the gap between the local economy and their potential customers. Without proper messaging, no matter how great — how noble — a movement is, if it can’t relate to a larger group, it is destined to fizzle out. And there is nothing inherent in the local foods movement to make it a fringe activity. This isn’t a simple, fanciful trend. Because it’s not just local-lovers who truly believe in their heart of hearts that something needs to “give” in our food distribution mentality.

Put plainly, how we eat now is not sustainable. If left as is, it will collapse. I’m sure there are several people out there far smarter than I am, working diligently on this project. But for those of us at the grass-roots level, local living is the “answer”. It combines all the different food-activism goals: it’s beneficial for humans (from farmers to eater’s health); it’s beneficial for the land (at it’s most basic, due to simple accountability); and it’s humane to animals (no true Locavore mistakes Hatfield for “local”). Ideally, the locavore movement is something that vegetarians, farm-worker union organizers and eco-warriors can all hang their hats on. But if people don’t know about how appealing this idea is, it runs the risk of petering out. Does anyone remember macrobiotics? Well, you might. But rest assured: Joe Sixpack doesn’t. And that’s the key: relevance.

The Green movement is still germane. And why is that? It’s not because our planet is going to hell in a hand basket. No, I’m a bit too cynical to believe that. It’s because certain key players — from Al Gore to the Christian Right (yeah, even they did) — got on board. That kept it from being sidelined in the media’s “flavor of the week” flow chart. And as someone who truly believes in the local movement, that’s what I want for my crusade: an assurance of sustained relevance.

So, fellow local-lovers, here we are, on the precipice of change. The word “locavore” is on the tips of everyone’s tongues. I’ve taken it as my personal mission to ensure that it moves from the tip to the stomach: that local-living becomes ingrained in our daily lives. My posts will be appreciable to those buying locally, but it will be most relevant to those selling locally. I want to give you brave and needed business owners the tools necessary to compete and to (reasonably) profit. Because I believe that when you gain, we all do. Happy Localling!