Come Home to Eat

Posted by Chris Kerston

March 31, 2007

I am very excited to be attending the second annual Come Home to Eat dinner tonight.  Here is the pdf flyer put out by the Nevada County Land Trust for more information http://www.nevadacountylandtrust.org/pdfs/March%2031%20Come%20Home%20To%20Eat%20press%20release.pdf

I had some correspondence with the event coordinator Rita de Quercus and her responses got me really excited about this event.  I asked her why this event was important and what message is it trying to send.  Rita responded “issues and concerns of local agriculture are not just for farmers and ranchers to deal with--they are community concerns. Food is one of the 3-4 basic survival needs. Humans have been feeding themselves locally and seasonally for thousands of years. Relying on a profit-driven global system to feed us is.....well, crazy.”  She states that this event is “the community coming together to recognize and honor the contributions of those who work and preserve the land that feeds us. It's also an opportunity for this community to ‘see’ itself, celebrate itself, have fun together (essential glue).”

            Last year was the first annual Come Home to Eat and it started out as a group of concerned consumers who wanted to know more about how their food was made, they wanted to meet the ranchers and farmers growing it, and they wanted to better understand the obstacles that growers face.  Out of that first meeting came the Local Food Coalition which Rita states “is not an organization per se--it is a network, and it is still building. At this point this network includes folks involved in nearly all the county ag organizations and functions, many non-profits that have missions that overlap with local food concerns, and many individual farms and farmers.”  As for the future of the LFC and the Come Home to Eat event she says “We are in an organic evolving process, just taking it one step at a time, figuring it out as we go. What we are offering to the larger community is the opportunity to become engaged in a real way in the real aspects of their lives.”

Check out the Local Food Coalition website for more information