A Quote by Tom Vilsack

Local and regional food systems are about opportunity.

Tom Vilsack

Quote Topics

About Food Local Opportunity Regional Systems

Quote Author

Tom Vilsack
American - Politician
Born: December 13, 1950

From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems.

Joel Salatin

Clients are becoming more global; they're realizing that markets are more interconnected. It's no longer the local regional clients buying the local regional flavors. It's everybody asking for everything.

Mary Callahan Erdoes

Anybody interested in solving, rather than profiting from, the problems of food production and distribution will see that in the long run the safest food supply is a local food supply, not a supply that is dependent on a global economy. Nations and regions within nations must be left free and should be encouraged to develop the local food economies that best suit local needs and local conditions.

Wendell Berry

I think as individuals, people overrate the virtues of local food. Most of the energy consumption in our food system is not caused by transportation. Sometimes local food is more energy efficient. But often it's not. The strongest case for locavorism is to eat less that's flown on planes, and not to worry about boats.

Tyler Cowen

Once the Government Accountability Office did a review of food safety systems in other countries and found many things about those food safety systems that were better than ours [American].

Marion Nestle

The thing about local government is they want to hear what local people think, but for the most part, their systems are so long, dull and bureaucratic that people only get involved when there's an issue they really care about.

Konnie Huq

I think more and more foundations are putting resources into food activism. But I think that given the state of the economy, foundations won't be giving as much in general. For me it's about working with these existing institutions in communities that people already go to, that people trust, that they know, and determining how best they can play a role in the creation of local food systems and address the ills that are right around them in the community.

Bryant Terry

It remains the task of governments to implement the fundamental human rights standards which should influence all aspects of globalisation, including even trade talks, and to be answerable for this in a democratic way. The structure is international, but the accountability is national and I would like to see that accountability being more penetrating at regional and local level, especially in federal systems.

Mary Robinson

How many of us lobby for green energy or protected lands, but don't engage with the local bounty to lay by for tomorrow's unseasonal reality? That we tend to not even think about this as a foundation for solutions in our food systems shows how quickly we want other people to solve these issues.

Joel Salatin

I make appearance at local park and recreation agencies when the program starts, when they have the qualifying meets at the local levels. Then I try to go to the regional competitions, and of course I'm there in Hershey, Pa., in August for the North American final.

Rafer Johnson

Understanding where your food comes from, trying to bolster local farmers and local economies and having a better connection to the food around you and the people around you, only good can come of that. I love to be involved with things like that.

Amos Lee

I think the systems that we have in place, which are run by local election officials, actually will be found to work very, very well, and that American voters should feel pretty good about the systems that help us elect our leadership and decide issues.

Matthew Dunlap

Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

Peggy McIntosh

Both our nations [Malasian and American] are committed to building a regional order where all nations play by the same rules and disputes are resolved peacefully and this visit will be an opportunity to continue deepening our cooperation on behalf of regional stability and prosperity.