WELCOME TO THE HOME OF THE Moab foodies
Mission Statement:
To inspire, assist and support the local, sustainable production of food to meet regional needs.
Rationale:
Food is our main source of nourishment and enjoyment and one of our most fundamental forms of security. A wholesome robust larder cultivates a healthy and secure community. Currently, the food on most American plates travels an average of 1500-2500 miles to reach the consumer. As gas prices continue to rise, so will the cost of our meals. With world politics becoming more and more volatile, it is up to every community to encourage the development of locally produced agriculture as a means to provide food security, boost and diversify local economy, reduce pollution, promote healthy nutrition and create nourishing social interaction.
It is the intent of the Canyonlands Sustainable Solutions Food Group to cultivate the development of ecologically sustainably produced food in the Canyonlands Region. This will ensure community food security, wholesome nutrition, health and social enjoyment with increased economic prosperity, as well as improving the natural balance and diverse integrity of the environment in which the community members live.
Means of Achieving the Mission:
Individual level food production or procurement for consumption:
1. Facilitate public education events and literature to promote organic home gardening, Permaculture design principles, composting, seed-saving, crop rotation, four-season growing, container growing, constructing and using season extenders such as cold frames, hoop houses, and greenhouses, food preservation and storage, and meal-planning using locally-available, in-season ingredients.
2. Support and educate about the humane and ethical practice of animal husbandry from raising chickens to larger domestic animals for the purpose of consumption or the harvesting of eggs and production of dairy products.
3. Facilitate courses in ethical stewardship of food-foraging, hunting and fishing from surrounding wild lands.
Community-level food production for regional consumption:
1. Assist in the development of community gardens - common growing spaces in which citizens tend their own plots to grow food for their own household, and in the development of community kitchens for preserving food and production of value-added food products by individual families.
2. Facilitate development of organic market production and marketing within the region through the development of local Farmers Markets and Community Supported Agriculture; farm-to-school food programs, restaurant and other commercial kitchen supply, development of growers marketing and buying cooperatives, development of commercial value-added agricultural processing and product marketing. Promote the recycling of agricultural wastes into usable products available to the community (municipal composting for example).
3. Promote and assist the development of organically raised (value added!) animal products that support the health and welfare of the environment by following Permaculture principles for the production of meat, eggs, dairy, honey and other animal by-products. Political and ethical: Form a food policy committee to work with local, state and national government to institute and maintain a favorable regulatory and legal environment which encourages localized, ecologically sustainable agricultural production and provides correct information to consumers about food choices.