Growing Food

Check out this cool video about efforts to refocus farming in the Willamette Valley towards more localized food production.  Thanks Kelly Donegan for pointing it out to us.

The video touches on a number of topical questions and issues in agriculture.  Should we re-organize our food system so that it is more local and regionally focused?  Should we focus most agriculture on producing food (rather than say crops for biofuels)?  Should our society be better connected to where our food comes from and the  farmers who grow it?  Should we pay more for food to ensure that the people who produce it have equitable working conditions and standards of living?  I think that the makers of the video (Harry MacCormack and his Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project) would clearly answer yes to those questions...and the best part of the video for me is that it provides examples of how some of our local  farmers are trying to implement these ideas.  Harry is right here in Corvallis at Sunbow Farm.

Yet even if you agree with the video's vibe, being at a university requires us to be critical and skeptical!  Can a more local food system really work...particularly in places less blessed by climate and soil than the Willamette Valley?  Will most people really pay more for food?  How do you get a whole society to re-think its relationship to food and how it is grown?