Photo: chicagopatchworkfarms.com
Lauren Gurley of In These Times writes about what's needed to build a local, sustainable food movement in Chicago and Illinois. A Sustainable Economies Law Center event in Chicago that brought together a stakeholders in the local food movement is mentioned.
"On an evening in late May, a group of Chicago small-business attorneys, urban farmers, environmental community organizers, and food policy makers gathered at a café in Chicago’s South Loop to discuss barriers to building a local, sustainable food movement in Chicago and Illinois at large.
The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC)—an Oakland, California-based nonprofit organization that provides legal tools for communities to build alternative, grassroots economic structures for food, housing, and energy—sponsored the event in part to gauge interest in establishing a Midwest SELC branch in Chicago. According to the event’s moderator, Chicago and Illinois have seen “a lot of activity in the local foods movement” in recent years, particularly within the upmarket restaurant industry whose relatively small scale is well matched with that of small farms."
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