Newsflash! Regional Council Push For Sustainable Agriculture

The Central Ohio Regional Food Council Push For Sustainable Agriculture

As part of the global push for sustainable agriculture, regional councils are getting involved at every level to ensure sustainable agriculture provides local, fresh and nutritional food, whilst supporting the local economy. A council that has recently taken to the news in the wake of this push is the Central Ohio Regional Food Council (CORFC).

Foodtank.com took to agricultural specialist Brian Williams, who argued that the CORFC establishes a platform for county food councils in the region, ensuring that gaps in the local food supply chain are closed. Williams emphasises the importance of buying local goods from regional farmers and distributors, which will help increase capacity for independent meat processors.

Topics like this are interesting yet controversial within the agricultural industry, as councils such as the CORFC aim to deter consumers from products of industrial agriculture and to instead support local and smaller sustainable farms. But why? It is well known to the readers of this blog by now that industrial agriculture is a contributing factor to the degradation of soil, polluting of the air, accelerated reduction in biodiversity and the major consumption of fossil fuels and water resources, as also emphasised by Lawrence & Walker (2002). Almost every process on an industrial scale (from production to transportation of goods) is minimised on these smaller-scale, regional sustainable farms.

Furthermore, the production and processing of food on smaller sustainable farms reduces the possibilities of improper processing and handling of food. This also includes the lack of vast distance goods are transported to reach consumers, which increases the risks of contamination and reduction of food quality even further. Local farms reduce these distances and the food is naturally fresher.  By ‘closing the gaps’ in the local food supply chain, farmers also benefit entirely, so supporting local suppliers as the CORFC emphasises also supports the local economy (Martinez et al 2012).

This push for sustainable agriculture also ensures food security, with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations emphasising that food security only exists when “a population has sufficient physical, social and economic access to nutritious food”.  

It is therefore clear why organisations such as CORFC aim to persuade consumers in this modern climate to buy from local farms instead of from industrial agricultural backgrounds, which would ultimately ensure food security, local economic success and fresher produce.