Through Commons Food Exchange you can help to create a local, micro-production market in your community and economically empower local home producers. The Commons Food Exchange is a local economic empowerment initiative. Commons circumnavigates formal industry and makes room for everyday individuals to grow fresh food and expand their economic wellbeing. Commons Food Exchange gets back to a local micro agriculture model that encourages individuals and households to experiment with growing a crop or two or three or many! The reality is, growing just one crop—like a few tomato plants—or a flat of basil—is simple. Combined with the efforts of your neighbors, together you could grow a large portion of your food right in your own neighborhood.
Social isolation, obesity, and disease connected to unhealthy lifestyle, are leading issues affecting our communities today. Through the Commons Food Exchange you can take part in building social capital and promoting public health within your neighborhood. In a global research project, scientists and nutritionists determined that what links the healthiest communities in the world, is that they all eat very close to the source. In the USA, on average 40% of adults suffer from loneliness and social isolation, 71% are overweight, and 40% will be diagnosed with cancer and cardiovascular disease, which is linked to diet and lifestyle. Commons Food Exchange develops sustainable, local, fresh food micro systems at the neighborhood level as a way of empowering people to take control of their health and wellness both socially and physically, and encourage community building, cooperation, and social capital within their neighborhoods.
U.S. animal agriculture, factory farm systems, packaging, & shipping creates 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and is the leading cause of climate change. Homegrown food is a gaining momentum in many communities in the USA as people begin to understand the reality of our inefficient food system and its impact on our global climate and environment. Inefficient food systems in the USA severely impact the global climate and environment as well as local individual health. From seed to harvest to production to packaging to shipping to purchasing, the US food system involves immense energy inputs, creates immense packaging waste and carbon and methane outputs, and leaves an unimaginable amount of food left to rot both in the fields and on the grocery store racks without ever reaching the hungry people that need it in our communities.
WHY LOCAL
