I just got my confirmation email for the Local Harvest challenge that starts next week. I got to choose as few or as many challenges from the list as what I wanted. As a family, we are going to try to tick a few good food choices boxes next week (and every week, hopefully):
Welcome to the Local Harvest Challenge
Monday 1st April – Sunday 7th AprilHi Kerri
Great to have you join up for the Local Harvest Challenge!
I’m looking forward to a week of discoveries as we get to know more of the story behind the things we eat. This week is about reducing the distance our food has travelled to come to us, but also about meeting the faces behind our food. Let’s support local growers and help build up a great food system.
For some of us we’ll be buying in a different way this week, for others it will mean learning some skills to do things ourselves in a new way.
So what’s your challenge?
1.Don’t use the supermarkets this week – shop at local independent grocers, butchers and delis
2.Shop at a farmers’ market
3.Source farm-gate produce
4.Shop at a local food coop, buy in bulk, take your own containers
5.Harvest and eat food from your own garden
6.Eat (at least) 5 Servings of Local, Organic fruit & veggies per day
7.Cook with seasonal produce
8.Make yoghurt
9.Compost your kitchen scraps
10.Start a worm farm
11.Visit a local commuity garden
12.Start a herb box or mini-plot (can be single pot on the porch, or something more in the garden)
13.Find out more about and try food preserving – bottling, drying, freezing
14.Find out about Urban bee-keeping
15.Like Local harvest on facebook, or follow on Twitter
16.Join a relevant community network (such as a permaculture group, transition initative, seed savers network, slow food)
17.Read a relevant book
18.Ask your local cafe for their coffee grounds for your garden
19.Ask your local grocer, deli or favourite cafe to include more local produceIn preparation, we encourage you to complete the Food Choices Audit here. There’s a spreadsheet to assist in documenting what you presently buy and where it comes from.
I’ll be in touch shortly with details on how you can blog your experiences. You can see blogs from last year’s challenge here, and who is participating in this 2013 Challenge week on the map.
Thanks for coming on board, and making a difference with your food choices!
Cheers, Nick
—
Nick Ray
Local Harvest, project co-ordinator
nick@localharvest.org.au
0417 114 492——————————————————————————–
You are receiving this email because you’re doing the Local Harvest Challenge. Yum!
If you want to make a difference (just to yourself or to the world); want to encourage children, neighbours and community to get involved; have a local business that could benefit from more customers finding out about you OR just for fun, this is a great challenge to get involved with (or share with your contacts, customers, school, etc). We are happy to be a part of this challenge. You might like to find out what it is all about, too. Go to http://www.localharvest.org.au/take-the-challenge/.
BetR2 
This is great! Consider it shared! Thank-you for following our efforts here as well. This revolution is not being televised.
Nice to see you here, otherfishwrap. So many individuals and organisations across the globe are united toward a better future. One day good choices will be the norm. Here’s hoping, anyway.
We hope you are well and good, the search for the best place continues. As of just over a year ago, we became climate refugees and are still trying to find the next place to plant our feet firmly in the Earth!
I’d really like to try number 18, but I keep putting it off. Maybe this is the week I should try. The trouble is that I’m not a regular at any cafe.
When I saw the list of choices for the challenge I, too, noted many were things I had been mumbling about but hadn’t really acted on. I think sometimes we need a little jostle to get us moving.
PS This list is a lot to accomplish in a week. I tend not to be making preserves and yoghurt while joining interest groups, reading books, working in the garden, being an activist and shopping – all at once.
I have been putting off (No 16) joining my local permaculture group as it is an unknown quantity and also because one thing leads to another so they’d probably want me to actively do something…sometimes I’m just comfortable getting what I can done in my own backyard. (read: lazy, anti-social procrastinator!)
Life’s a challenge; might as well give it a go. LOL
Great to see others so involved with sustainable food!
Thanks, Scott. We are interested to do this challenge mostly because of what we will learn. We all too seldom spend time to get to know our food sources.
SAD! This challenge isn’t in the states 😦
Thanks for Sharing, and I wish you success!
Hi Laura, thanks for dropping by. I am always impressed to find so many different positive things happening in this world. Although this particular challenge is Australian, the Local Harvest project is based on the USA model. http://www.localharvest.org/. Keep an eye out, there is sure to be something happening near you.
We are hoping the success, for us, will be in the thought processes and the learning curve this week.
Kerri
My CSA is on local harvest here, I was just disappointed when I realized that it wasn’t in the sates. I will be looking for something here! I was startled when I stopped to think about everything that I use that is not local!
Pingback: Wish it was Groundhog Day | BetR2