Building Community Food Security

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My husband and I have been developing our central-Ohio homestead for the past 10 years, and it now produces most of the food we eat. Our Dutch Belted cows and Dorking chickens give us meat, milk products and eggs. The animals also contribute to the compost that creates our excellent garden soil, which grows our nutritious vegetables and fruits that, in winter, fill our root cellar and line the shelves of our basement pantry. Bees from our own hive sweeten our food and pollinate our crops.

We’re thankful that we have healthy food and that our farm can sustain itself largely without outside inputs. That said, we realize the majority of people in our community buy their food from grocery stores. The availability of such food is totally dependent on oil. It’s farmed with large tractors and petroleum-based chemicals, and it’s transported, processed, packaged and refrigerated using fossil fuels. As petroleum reserves dwindle and oil continues to become more expensive, food prices will go up, causing some people to go hungry.

If my family were hungry, I wouldn’t think twice about climbing over a neighbor’s fence to steal a chicken or two. If our neighbors were hungry, I would expect them to do the same. Given this, none of us can feel secure about our own food supply until the food supplies of our neighbors and communities are also secure. If we use what we learn while producing our own food to help our community members produce food of their own, we can take great strides toward reaching community food security.

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