Along with corporate concentration in retail foods, came the demise of most small town grocery stores. In just a couple of decades, important outlets for locally-produced food vanished. Consumer choices also vanished with local grocers—you can’t buy what is not on the supermarket shelf, and premium-quality fruits and vegetables, locally produced, rarely adorn chain store shelves.
But the loss of most communities’ ma and pop grocers also carries many hidden costs. For example, many consumers must now drive twenty miles or more, one way, to shop for food that was once available right in their home towns and neighborhoods. More fuel usage, more time away from family, wear and tear on vehicles, highways, more pollution...you get the picture.
Consumers’ retail food dollars thus no longer stay in their own communities and circulate by means of the multiplier effect. Instead, the money is sent electronically on a daily basis to distant headquarters of the giant food retailers. Remember that a dollar spent at a chain store supermarket is spent only once locally, while a dollar spent at a local grocer may circulate several more times within the community.
Think about what it is we’ve lost, and then think about joining the movement toward local food sovereignty. Regaining access to better choices for what you eat, and what you feed your families, requires you join the struggle when called. That struggle will start in your own neighborhood, town, village, or county. In other words, at the grass roots where nothing is more powerful than a committed citizenry allied for meaningful change. Lead the struggle if you can, or answer the call to be led. Either way, you will make a difference….
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