I’ve been looking at visualizations of local food systems and ran across Aaron Newton’s 2007 post on the bullseye diet. It’s one of the clearest, most pragmatic approaches to being conscious about eating food that’s produced closer to home – while taking into account the realities of our global food system. Making good food choices can be complicated – but this approach simplifies the process.

Newton, who co-wrote A Nation of Farmers, …needed a conceptual way to organize my increasingly entangled way of thinking about local food…imagine sourcing your food as a good game of darts where the dart board represents your geographical region. A great shot ends up in the bullseye- your own home- eating food you have grown yourself. As you move outwards on the board, your next nearest food source is usually your best bet. How much food can you grow in your neighborhood? How about buying food from a farmer just outside of town? Can you get other foods from your surrounding region? How much can you obtain from within your own state? The idea is that the closer to home – the closer to the bullseye – the better.

Sharon Astyk, co-author of A Nation of Farmers, adds:  Like a darts game, you won’t always hit your circle. But with practice, you can get a little closer every time. The more food you create in your community, the better off we all are.

For all the grumbling you do about your weekly grocery bill, the fact is you’ve never had it so good, at least in terms of what you pay for every calorie you eat.  According to the USDA, Americans spend less than 10% of their incomes on food, down from 18% in 1966. Those savings begin with the remarkable success of one crop: corn…But cheap food is not free food, and corn comes with hidden costs.

via America’s Food Crisis and How to Fix It – TIME

A decades long conversation about the sustainability of our food system has moved from books and blogs and food activist listservs into mainstream media.  Wherever you look there’s an article, a movie, a TV or radio segment about our broken food system, about food safety, about how our eating habits are making us sick.

And about how much organic lettuce the White House Garden is producing.
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Welcome to Local Orbit!  A little more than 18 months ago we started talking with local food producers, chefs and eaters about creating a better food chain.

Everyone we talked with was hungry for food that comes from farmers and artisan food producers they know and trust. Many were interested in spending a larger share of their food dollars in their own communities. Everyone had a story about limited or inefficient access to locally produced food.
read on…