| The local food movement offers the simple premise that changing the way we eat can change the world. As the global adoption of neoliberal practices has encouraged the "privatization of survival," where states deregulate, sell, and commodify social services once provided for free or at low cost, people without monetary means to access them have gone into debt or gone without. This reduction in public services, rising unemployment rates, soaring fuel and food costs, and a "race to the bottom in food" production that makes food less nutritious and less safe, have made more people unable to provide for basic needs and consume healthy food. Additionally, as neoliberal policies have triggered extreme economic inequality, acute difficulties meeting basic needs, and the erosion of political representation, people have responded by rejecting globalization outright or attempting to guide it down a more sustainable path. To better understand the nature of such responses to globalization, where the local food movement fits in, and how urban agriculture efforts in Detroit, Flint, and Ypsilanti are unique, this project documents how the local food movement seeks to relocalize the economy and adopt more sustainable consumption practices to counter the economic inequality, resource scarcity, and social fragmentation exacerbated by neoliberal policies and practices. This project is an ethnographic study of the local food movement in southeastern Michigan and California conducted through urban agriculture experiments and participant observation of farmers markets, urban farms, farmers' cooperatives, community and school gardens, restaurants, non-profits, and local food distribution networks. It also included an online survey investigating motives to support and participate in the local food movement, a comparison between the physical environment, food system, and social environment in Michigan and California, and informal interviews with growers, producers, eaters, chefs, and business owners. It found that although California agriculture is dominant in crop diversity, growing season, and production volume, Michigan has advantages in water and land access, food safety legislation, and zoning ordinances that enable urban agriculture initiatives to be more successful. |
