Keeping the food dollar at home

Take a look at the numbers:

• 1,500 miles is the average travel distance for food items consumed in Illinois.

• Agricultural products sold directly for human consumption comprise less than 0.2 percent of Illinois farm sales.

• 90 percent of food sold in this state is grown outside Illinois.

• Illinois ranks fifth in the nation in loss of farmland.

Because of those numbers, and other like them, the state of Illinois is taking a look at how to build a local food system, and some local people are involved in the process.

“We had identified here several years ago that there are probably well over 100 farmer-to-consumer producers of food, fiber, various products, within a 50-mile radius of Princeton,” said Pam Horwitz of Tiskilwa, an Illinois Food and Farms Coalition member. “What’s missing is that there’s no network. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

Several years ago, Horwitz, her sister, Deb Roush, and Keith Bolin of Manlius attended a meeting of the Illinois Local Food Coalition.

“That group was taking a look at drafting legislation that would somehow facilitate the state of Illinois and public law in regard to a local food system,” she said.

As they listened, Horwitz said nothing was said about downstate Illinois.

“We heard about consumer demand coming out of Chicago, that Chicago consumers don’t know anything about where their food is grown,” she said. “They were talking about food deserts and poverty stricken neighborhoods in urban metro areas, and it was like the hair stood up on the back of my neck.”

Horwitz had long been concerned about economics in rural areas, and the three of them saw an opportunity.

“We began to sort of see our role in this Coalition as helping them to understand about rural, downstate communities and their needs, and how they needed to have a voice in what this Coalition was doing,” she said.

Horwitz said they saw the local food network could be used for rural revitalization, and that food could be an economic development tool.

The final legislation produced by the Coalition passed the General Assembly and became law on Aug. 14. The legislation, which includes the statistics listed above, calls for the creation of an Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force, which will develop a plan for expanding and supporting a local food system.