The Next Step for the Local Sustainable Food Community
The Wind Is At Our Backs
The community of people brought together by their commitment and passion for local sustainable food has matured in ways I could not have imagined in the past months. I think it has surprised all of us frankly. On Twitter, on Facebook, on FriendFeed, on LinkedIn. In countless phone conversations and late night emails. This community is so alive, it is so real. And with each passing day we gain strength.
New voices have emerged, new partnerships have been forged, new friendships made. Many differences have already been overcome.
And it’s time to take it to the next level.
Which is why today I am calling on the local sustainable food movement to join me in starting something new. It’s an idea I, along with others, have been kicking around for a few weeks. I want to start a new website that will conglomerate all of our voices, all of our stories and all of the wonderful content that people all over this country have been unearthing. Essays, Podcasts, Video, Recipes, Narratives, Photos, Live Forums…Farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, foodies, home cooks, moms, dads, children. All of us.
The only way for us to break through to the next level is to join together. Banding together will make our sum far greater than our individual parts.
I’ll tell you what I am willing to do.
I am willing to walk away from the Farm to Table blog, and I am willing to take my amazing audience with me. I am willing to start from scratch in order to make a difference.
Why? Why would I walk away from a personal project that has given me a purpose in life far beyond anything I could have imagined? Why would I walk away from something successful and which holds the potential for personal profit?
Because I want to write and publish alongside the people who make up this community. The people who have shown me that together we can effect the changes we all know this country needs to make. I want my name alongside all of you. I want to be your partner.
So what am I asking for?
I am asking this community to consider the greater good, something I know that each and everyone of us is capable of. We know that improving American food will improve the lives of countless people, of countless communities. It will make us healthier as a society, it will heal the land, it will enrich the brave farmers among us, it will create new jobs, and it will put us on a path to prosperity for the next hundred years. The best way for us to bring about this better society is to band together. We need to create a tribe.
The funny thing is, we already are a tribe. We already are a disparate band of brothers and sisters out in the scary wilderness. Well I want us to take that next big step together and create something lasting, something that will be remembered as a starting point.
I am asking this community to contributing their amazing content to this new site. We want to take all of our amazing readers and wrap them up in one big package. This is how we’re going to evolve, by working together, by using the tools of social media to break through into the mainstream. I want every non-professional blogger and content creator to join me in this project. We’ll create a brand new website where all of us will have the same rights and permissions as any others. It will be completely transparent. Because that is a hallmark of the social world in which we live. We will all manage it. We will all share in its successes.
At the end of the day, we are the ones that are going to take this movement into the mainstream. And we are so close. WE ARE THE AVANT GARDE.
The local sustainable food world is a people powered bottom up community.
And there is an incalculable source of power in this kind of community. I want to unleash it. We all want to unleash it.
So will you join me? Will you put aside your own personal projects to join something different, something new, something experimental? Will you put aside your ego in order to do the heavy lifting that our country needs?
I AM! If you are willing to join me, and the others who have already expressed their support, let us know! It’s a tall order. It’s a risk. But I think we all know that without risks, there are no rewards.
The only question is what do we call the darned thing?
That's a great idea! Civil Eats has become that for a great group of peeps w/ not-for-profitty backgrounds.
I think it would be great for the ProFood peeps to have a group one as well. Unification!!
Civil eats is great but they are wonky.
Sounds wonderful! I read several other collaborative sustainability sites like http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/ and http://www.homegrown.org/ and I'm curious how this project would be similar to/different from those sites?
I write about sustainability and DIY over at http://www.baltimorediy.blogspot.com. I am definitely interested in collaborating!
they look very good…are you guys on twitter? i havent heard of any of
these sites before…which is a shame cause they look great at first glance
Yes! But I think you already found me
@AlizaEss
[...] Posted in: People Power by Zachary Adam Cohen [...]
Great idea, go team. Piggy-backing on the ongoing discussion re: Pollan vs. small ag, I think it would be important to include farmer bloggers and interviews with farmers/producers–good way for them to advertise (you're ok with that, right? since this is pro-food?) but also their stories are essential to the conversation.
of course! we want narratives, interviews profiles of sustainable
enterprises! We want that of course!!! and we want to support sustainable
businesses in anyway we can!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Byrne. Chris Byrne said: A Beautiful Invitation: The Next Step for the Local Sustainable Food Community Online http://bit.ly/2hh5Cq by @ZacharyCohen (via @kubileya) [...]
Well how about considering all joining in on this site just launched by USDA and if we all band together our voices will be heard…
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/knowyourfarmer?n…
i have no problem with that, except the federal government is a top down
structure which is not applicable to a bottom up people powered movement
Food Forward?
Well – I don't think all the individual blogs need to go away, we just need a unique tag, and some agreggator tools. – Yes, of course new content can be written for it, but we can also feed our best stuff too it.
It's a shame 'farm to table' is taken…it's good. But in fairness it should be something shiney and new. nourish.us ?
If you want a localvore-ish food-mommy blogger sign me up!
i do and awesome! thanks for your support!
You have my fullest support. I will be happy to blog, photograph, chronicle our efforts, dig in the dirt, bake bread, whatever it takes! It has been so restorative for my family and I to take our food choices/experiences into our own hands as much as possible: growing and preserving the freshest food we can manage; supporting and working with local farmers and artisan food producers; reading, understanding and above all, connecting with like-minded individuals to learn as much as we can in order to fully experience our “Food Birthright”. All of the amazing people involved in this monumental effort to move our food systems into a sustainable future keep inspiring me, often in the most surprising ways.
What might work is a cross between the realfoodmedia.com concept (which can draw site-appropriate advertising $ and possibly sell site-appropriate products) and a profood Alternet. The encompassing blog could serve as a major clearinghouse and network for profood news and writing—both in-house bloggers and cross-posted articles. That way those who want to maintain their own blogs can cross-post (similar to realmedia, alternet or organicconsumers.org), benefiting from extra traffic, and the encompassing blog benefits from being, well, encompassing of both original content and outside talent.
I wholeheartedly support a unified sustainable farm site but don't walk away from your blog. Use it to direct people to the new site/organization.
We, in CA, are all doing so much via Community Alliance of Family Farmers, Slow Food, Sonoma County Farm Trails, Farm Link and then there is the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy…the list is huge and we are duplicating efforts.
Thanks for the great idea.
I agree with the idea a site that is really a network of individual bloggers. I'm partial to names that reflect this sort of model (something like “The Rhizome Collective” from Texas).
I'd like to stay closer to plant-based names, and further away from names like Food-to-Table. Food names would limit the scope of the group, and I think there are already a TON of sustainable-foodie blogs out there. A plant-based name would allow us to include articles about natural cleaning projects, construction projects, outdoor activities, animals, travelling, and more.
One other quick thing: Having a streamlined website!!
There's nothing worse than clicking on a site that has way too much information clogging the screen. This is especially a concern for this type of website, where there would be lots of different voices going on at once. I'm not a web designer, but that's just my two cents.
Thanks Zachary! This idea has clearly caught fire!
AmaZing comment
I don't have anything amazing to contribute, but I'd sure like to be a part of this new frontier!
thank you!!
Thanks for the call to action, Zachary. Do you know the Small Business Web? Something similar to this could be powerful: http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com/ I'd be interested in exploring this. Maybe a working group to start?
Count me in! I will be happy to contribute, though I agree with the comment that I don't think individual blogs need to disappear, but could point to this new site. Let's do it!
[...] Farm to Table, Zach has written recently about his ideas for bringing the local sustainable food community together. He says, “The [...]
[...] about finding good leaders, and I’ve talked about banding together. I’ve talked about forming community blogs, overcoming our differences, marginalizing people who allow “perfect to be the enemy of the [...]
[...] talked about finding good leaders, and I’ve talked about banding together. I’ve talked about forming community blogs, overcoming our differences, marginalizing people who allow “perfect to be the enemy of the [...]
Zachary,
I just found your site yesterday, and this post today. Farm Stories has just been set up in the last few weeks, but already offers the ability for anyone to get their own blog to contribute, both individually, and to the community publication as a whole. It has the ability to assign admin (editor) capabilities so that there could be editors responsible for groups of blogs categorized by regions, subject matter, etc. I am extremely open to collaboration, and the site actually allows for this loosely even if people just sign up for their own blogs and start blogging. It also has the ability to be self sustaining and I would be happy to discuss the possibilities with you or anyone else.
Sincerely,
Mike Murphy
Farm Stories
http://www.FarmStories.org
.-= Mike Murphy´s last blog ..Global Food Security: U.S. Commitment to Action =-.
Hi Zachary! I just discovered your blog today and I love your idea. My site is: http://www.OrganicNation.tv – an exploration of the American sustainable food system featuring original web videos, an interactive map and daily blog. How can we help?
.-= Dorothee Royal-Hedinger´s last blog ..Organic Pick of the Week: Simple Shoes #2 =-.
[...] about finding good leaders, and I’ve talked about banding together. I’ve talked about forming community blogs, overcoming our differences, marginalizing people who allow “perfect to be the enemy of the [...]