What Is a Local and Regional Food System?
A food system comprises the interdependent and linked activities that result in the production and exchange of food. These include farming and community gardening; processing; storage; distribution and transportation; food access via grocery stores, restaurants, and street food, as well as nutrition programs such as school meals and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called the Food Stamp Program); cooking and food preservation; and food recycling through gleaning, food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens. A food system is local when it allows farmers, food producers and their customers to interact face-to-face at point of purchase. Regional food systems generally serve larger geographical areas such as a metropolis, a state or even multiple states, and they often can work with farmers who have larger volume of single products to sell. According to The Case for Local Food Systems, a white paper by the Farm and Food Policy Project, “local food systems have
