Foodshed
The “farm-to-table” movement is focused on producing food locally within a foodshed, and delivering it to local consumers. Direct farm-to-table in the United States tends to comprise only a very minor segment of the food distribution system in terms of size and importance, but is growing in popularity.Nearly 5 percent of all farmers engage in some form of direct food marketing. Estimates of all farm-to-table sales within a foodshed range from roughly $550 million to $2 billion. Many local farms are family-run farms that are successful and do survive through poor economic conditions. Ecologists consider to be more adaptive and more likely to “reproduce” in highly variable and uncertain environments.
Food First
Its mission is “to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger”. According to the Food First website, its main goal is to forge food sovereignty for human rights and sustainable livelihoods, and to do so it has three programs of development: building local agri-foods systems, farmers forming food sovereignty, and democratizing development. The organization is meant to offer policy analysis on poverty, agriculture, and development, and is highly critical of the policies implemented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The organization focuses on the Green Revolution which was supported in the 1970s and which did not produce the development people hoped for. Instead it put in place a system that has high input-costs, but does not produce a yield much higher than traditional farming methods. There has been a recent resurgence of Green Revolution ideas, especially with the large-scale support of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and high-yield-variety agriculture. Food First claims that these policies will only further global inequalities, and has produced several policy briefs stating that the way to establish fair and effective development is through local sustainable agriculture.