Assess This

It's not the stuff that Hollywood movies are made of (though give me 100 million bucks and I'd make a strong case), but it is the stuff that dreams are made of - for people who like to eat anyway.

On Wednesday, July 16, a cast of more than 20 passionate characters gathered in the meeting room of the Carbondale Public Library to take a serious look at our local food system. The goal is to embark upon a Community Food Assessment (CFA), a year-long journey that will entail plenty of hard work, lots of research, serious coalition building, outreach and a host of other efforts aimed at creating a comprehensively accurate portrait of our potential to feed the people of Southern Illinois as sustainably as possible.

A solid CFA will determine the regions' assets while addressing the problems as well. We can use this information as leverage to attain grant funds; to educate the public more about the benefits of local and organic food; to find resources to help "specialty crop" growers with marketing and promotion; to help new, young farmers with training and securing loans for land; to assist lawmakers in Springfield to create policy favorable to locally-grown goods and services; and the list goes on.

So, there's plenty at stake here. As the process moves along, we will keep readers abreast of the issues that are covered and the progress that we make.

But one thing is abundantly clear already ... plenty of truly passionate and intelligent people are intent on seeing this project through.

For anyone else interested in making our local food dreams become a reality, we'd love to hear from you.