Pastel Sunrise, Painted Sunset
Chicago’s sky show, in its many moods, went from dawn to dusk on Tuesday.
Illinois Stewardship Alliance is the state’s leading policy advocate for the local food and farm community. I’m happy to share a link to the recording of NPR Community Voices featuring Alliance Deputy Director Molly Pickering and hosted by Vanessa Ferguson (click the button below to listen).
Molly, who is approaching her nine-year anniversary working with Illinois Stewardship Alliance, discussed local food policy, regenerative agriculture, new legislation for 2022, and how you can make a difference. Here are some highlights:
Why she wanted to work for the Alliance: “I was pulled toward their mission, which is really about small-scale agriculture and creating economically viable, environmentally sustainable, socially just local food systems.”
What the Alliance does: “We are a statewide non-profit organization and we bring farmers and eaters together to solve problems in the food system.”
Ag consolidation is a big concern: “One of the biggest issues is there is a lot of consolidation in the food industry and we have a system of regulations that really are set up to encourage consolidation and more corporate control versus building a very diverse landscape of small farmers and small businesses…”
Scoring big on cottage food “The legislation that we worked on last year… which was one of our biggest wins in recent history was around cottage food. Cottage food is food that is made in a home kitchen… Changing the law to enable people to bake or make stuff in their home kitchen and be able to sell it to the public enables people to start small, grow their businesses, earn a little income, and then eventually scale up into a storefront that wasn’t really possible for them before.”
Why regenerative: “Agriculture has an outsized impact on everything we do… the environment… the local economy and public health. So the type of agriculture we want to see is agriculture that is going to help foster the environment, reverse climate change, sink carbon. Also the kind that keeps money in our local economies so we don’t have to import food from out of our state. We can grow it here in Illinois and feed our communities in Illinois.”
Food justice: “The just part is making sure that everybody has access to wholesome, healthy food and also that folks can make a living… in agriculture responsibly stewarding the land. Agriculture has some real problem with racial equity… and that is something we’d like to see changed.”
Buy Fresh Buy Local: “One of the ways we help people find local food… is through Buy Fresh Buy Local Illinois. It is a directory of many different farms, farmers markets, farm to table restaurants, and local food co-ops and grocery stores in Illinois…. It’s www.buyfreshbuylocalillinois.org.”