Michael Brownlee, cofounder of the nonprofit Local Food Shift Group, issues a call for a revolutionary movement to localize the global food supply and lays out a practical guide for navigating the challenging process of shaping the local or regional food system.
Michael Brownlee has long been a catalyst in the process of food localization in Colorado, working to ignite, inspire, guide, and empower those who are facing the challenges and opportunities of localizing our food supply. The cofounder of nonprofit Local Food Shift Group (formerly Transition Colorado, the first official Transition initiative in North America), he's more recently been focusing his efforts on a single project- publishing a magazine to be the voice for the local food revolution in Colorado. He is copublisher of Local Food Shift magazine, whose first edition was published in September 2015.
“This is the local food book that needed to be written. As Brownlee
so chillingly details, our globalized food system is in crisis.
Food scarcity looms in the all-too-near future. If we’re to
continue getting square meals three times a day, we too need to
join this quest to localize our food supply.” —Tim Rinne, state
coordinator, Nebraskans for Peace; cofounder, Hawley Hamlet
Community Garden; and charter member, Lincoln-Lancaster Food Policy
Council
“The Local Food Revolution is a must-read for anyone who is
concerned about the current state of the industrial, global food
system and who asks, ‘What can I do to help awaken my foodshed?’”
—Veronica House, PhD, associate faculty director for
service-learning and outreach, University of Colorado, Boulder
“What begins as Michael Brownlee’s own journey from concerned
activist to community catalyst becomes a handbook for ‘deep
revolution,’ with local and regional food systems at the center of
it all. For those concerned that change is not enough, he offers
not just a revolutionary call to action, but also a new path
forward.” —Philip Ackerman-Leist, professor of sustainable
agriculture and food systems, Green Mountain College, Vermont, and
author of Rebuilding the Foodshed
“Mixing history and philosophy with a hopeful yet realistic call to
action, Michael Brownlee’s profound work demands immediate
attention. One of the single most important elements of our fate as
a species is the state of our global food system grid as it exists
in small local equations. Brownlee gives us the perfect opportunity
and the tools to once and for all solve for x. The Local Food
Revolution is the blueprint for the future wellness of our
planetary community.”
—Daniel Asher, executive chef, River and Woods and co-chair, Chefs
Collaborative/Colorado
“Michael Brownlee’s book is a wide-ranging discussion from his
early recognition of the changes affecting our planet and his
important, ongoing identification of and engagement with ideas and
models from influential leaders, thinkers, and movers (of which he
is one). Rather than just observe and report, he is a leader who
participates, implements, tests, and catalyzes emerging ideas and
concepts. This book is an inspiration to anyone who feels our
problems are too big to address and that we can't do anything; they
aren’t, and we can.”
—Jack Round, Transition Omaha, Let’s Eat Investment Group
“The multi-layered global crisis, and in particular, abrupt climate
change, demand nothing less than a local food revolution that
reaches far beyond farmers markets and buying local. Every human
life going forward depends on a radical transformation of our
relationship with food and how we provide it for our communities.
Michael Brownlee maps this revolution with laser clarity. If you
eat, you must read this book.”
—Carolyn Baker, PhD, author of Love In The Age of Ecological
Apocalypse and Collapsing Consciously
“Few evolutionary catalysts see the nexus between local food
systems and deep cultural transformation with the clarity of
Michael Brownlee. Want to find the connections between Thomas
Paine, Christopher Alexander, and the organic farmer down the
street? They are here for you in this book.”
—Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money and author of Inquiries into
the Nature of Slow Money
“As humankind moves towards an uncertain future facing issues
related to climate change, water quantity/quality, healthy soil for
food production, and more food-resilient communities, The Local
Food Revolution provides a road map for those brave enough to
embark on its bold manifesto. An early food system pioneer who
catalyzed evolutionary change and helped revolutionize the future
of local food for Colorado, Michael Brownlee provides a direct and
biting reflection on what it will take to revolutionize our local
food system while meeting the difficult food demands forecast for
our future. His insights and recommendations are well-researched,
thoughtful, and brutally honest.”
—Rusty Collins, Denver County Director, Colorado State University
Extension
“Michael Brownlee raises this ‘call to farms’ (local of course) to
inspire an urgently needed revolution in our food system. The
urgency is born of declining resources and increasingly disruptive
climate change. He gives this call an evolutionary context: every
collapse is followed by an emergence of something completely
new. He envisions foodsheds that are regional, regenerative
and restorative, in stark contrast to the rapacious industrial food
system. He invites us to ‘bring food home again’ as ‘a choice
for life itself.’ Stories of pioneers revolutionizing all
facets of emerging foodsheds are a real treasure. Learn from
Michael’s decade of experience cultivating a ‘local food shift’ in
Colorado to empower food localization wherever you are.”
—Janaia Donaldson, Peak Moment Television
“This book needs to be widely read by those in the local food
movement. Michael Brownlee explains the local food revolution as
emerging from an evolutionary shift in ethical and cultural values
occurring at the deepest levels of human consciousness, a ‘deep
revolution.’ He provides a wealth of philosophical insights and
practical information about how to be an effective ‘evolutionary
catalyst’ but stresses that deep revolutions arise from within and
must be nurtured rather than developed. The local food revolution
can only be sustained by a spiritual reawakening to the inherent
sacredness of food and farming.”
—John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics,
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO and author of The Essentials
of Economic Sustainability, Sustainable Capitalism, and Crisis and
Opportunity
“For those of us weighed down with concern for our children’s
prospects for a safe and abundant life, The Local Food
Revolution provides a high-minded but thoroughly practical
primer on how to get started, now, to change that doubt into hope.
This book will be recognized as a classic reference that every food
activist will keep near at hand for centuries to come.”
—Alan Lewis, Government Affairs and Food and Agriculture Policy,
Natural Grocers
“Telling a personal journey of transitioning to local food as
calling—intense, deep, and transforming—this book holds an
important place for those currently involved in localizing
foodsheds, and helps us all understand the urgency of saving and
re-vitalizing our food systems locally.”
—Nanna Meyer, PhD, associate professor of health sciences,
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
“Few people in the world have thought longer and deeper about the
local food revolution than Michael Brownlee. In a journey
reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Brownlee
traces the evolution of his work in Colorado and the evolution of
his thinking about the movement’s global importance. He
reveals himself to be as much a philosopher as a practitioner, with
provocative, invaluable, and entertaining insights for anyone who
wants to reshape his or her own community.”
—Michael H. Shuman, community economist and author of The Local
Economy Solution
“Buckminster Fuller could have written the preface to The Local
Food Revolution: “You never change things by fighting the existing
reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete.” A deep bow to Michael Brownlee, who is
serving as a lead catalyst and synthesizer of this new
model. Join the emerging global awakening to beat the clock of
mass extinction.”
—John Steiner and Margo King, transpartisan/sacred activists
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