Expanding local agriculture for health, healthy economy

I write to ask Gov.-elect Bev Purdue and the General Assembly to take note. Building a local sustainable food economy in North Carolina can yield statewide economic development, create jobs and stop money from leaking out of the state in this time of recession. And it comes with many additional benefits as well.

The thing about food is that it is essential for life, so no matter how bad the recession gets, the need and demand for food will continue. This is one industry that we can keep and expand in our state, if we choose to. Expanding our local agriculture does not mean that we don't trade with other states and nations, but that we buy from ourselves as we trade with others.

According to the USDA, we spend approximately $4,010 per capita annually for food. If we spent just 5 percent of that on foods grown in our state, that would bring $1.7 billion in revenue for North Carolina farmers and related businesses. In addition, money spent on local food has a multiplier-effect, circulating in the local economy, rather than leaving the state to go to a corporate headquarters elsewhere.

Take apples as an example. N.C. farmers currently grow enough apples to supply 42 percent of fresh apple consumption in the state. But as a consumer, you are more likely to find an apple from Washington in your grocery store than you are to find one grown locally. One study in Iowa found that on average food travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate.

And what about those additional benefits? The potential benefits to North Carolina's communities are numerous and include job creation, preservation of open space and farmland, greater food security and improved public health.

North Carolina is currently tied for first in the nation in the loss of farms. The average age of farmers in the state is 56. With a population growth of 21.4 percent from 1990 to 2000 and an estimated 600,000 more people in N.C. by 2010, there will likely be significant demand for new residential growth, risking even greater loss of farmland than experienced during the past five years. The estimated growth in population is a planning challenge and needs to be managed so that it does not displace valuable farm land.

Public-health professionals across our state are also paying more attention to the food system and its role in poor health outcomes. In the past few decades, American consumers have had ready access to an abundance of low-cost, high-calorie foods with ingredients like high-fructose corn-syrup. And rates of obesity and diabetes have risen accordingly. North Carolina ranks 17th among the states in adult obesity and is fifth highest in childhood obesity.

Farm-to-school programming and urban gardening are approaches to addressing obesity in children while simultaneously building community-oriented food systems. These programs utilize a wide variety of strategies geared toward increasing children's consumption of fresh, local foods while expanding market opportunities for local farmers.

Finally, let's consider food security. More and more people want to know where their food comes from, how it was grown and who grew it. Food contamination scares have contributed to this. Shouldn't we protect our capacity to grow our own food by working to make our local agriculture economically viable and vibrant? This may take an investment by the state as we rebuild our local food system infrastructure, but will have significant payoffs across the board, including new job creation.

The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (www.cefs.ncsu.edu) has introduced an exciting statewide effort to ask the question, "What will it take to build a local, sustainable food system and economy in North Carolina?" This organization has been holding regional meetings across the state, will host a summit on March 2 and 3, and will develop a state plan for building the local food economy. Decision makers and their staffs should attend the summit and pay attention to the recommendations that are developed.

Many of the experts predicted unsustainability in the economy before it began to unravel. In the world of agriculture, which connects not only jobs, food and the environment, but also has health consequences, the state of our nation's agriculture is every bit as unsustainable as the economy. There is a solution -- building a local sustainable food system -- and the primary question is this: Will we act before the crisis or after?

■ Eva Clayton is a former congresswoman from North Carolina's 1st district and assistant director-general for the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization. She is on the advisory committee for the CEFS Building a Local Food Economy initiative.