Local Food Resources

Local Food Advocacy Toolkit

The Local Food Toolkit is an education-for-action resource designed to help activist raise awareness about the perils of the global food system and to encourage concrete responses predicated on the myriad benefits of more diversified, localized food systems. The materials describe how we have come to be dependent on global food and outlines the steps needed to shift towards the local - at home as well as around the world. Audiences with diverse interests and backgrounds in food issues have found the Toolkit "informative and inspiring!" It is perfect for community, faith-based and advocacy groups, policy-makers, and teachers. You can order the complete kit, or each of its component parts separately.

The Toolkit includes:

  • The Local Food, Globally narrated slideshow DVD, with accompanying fact sheet handouts.

  • The Local Food, Global Prosperity poster exhibition. These large-format (18" x 22") full-colour laminated poster sets are available on a rental basis for such venues as farmers' markets, conferences, businesses and community gatherings. Smaller 8.5" x 11" (or A4) posters are also available for rental or purchase.

  • A resistance and renewal action packet brimming with strategic policy actions and 'How to' guides for those interested in revitalizing local food economies.

  • ISEC's book: Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness, by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrified and Steven Gorelick. This book illustrates the bleak realities of ‘global food’ and outlines how we can shift direction – towards local food systems that meet real human and ecological needs. Written in an accessible style, the book serves as a valuable introduction to the economics and politics of food for the general reader. The book also provides hard facts and figures to back up the arguments for local food.

  • ISEC's report: Ripe for Change: Rethinking California's Food Economy, by Katy Mamen, Steven Gorelick, Helena Norberg-Hodge and Diana Deumling.  This report details the global economic underpinnings of California's deteriorating food system.  Through this big picture analysis, it unifies the various local food movements in California and points the way toward systemic localization.

If you are interested in ordering the complete Local Food Toolkit, please contact us.

If you are interested in displaying the Local Food posters in your community, or purchasing single components of the Toolkit, please contact us.

The Local Food Roadshow

Bring ISEC's Local Food Roadshow to your community for a presentation of our slideshow. The Roadshow includes the large poster exhibition, fact sheet handouts and action packet (from the Local Food Toolkit above). Presentations are available at nominal cost to environmental groups, food safety activists, farm organisations, local government bodies, civic organisations, church groups, schools and universities, and other community bodies. Contact us for details on how to host the Local Food Roadshow.

Note: At present, ISEC staff are only available to present the Roadshow near our Berkeley, California or UK offices.