new documentary on local food movement has oregon-heavy cast (link)
09.28.09 - the oregonian - by scott learn

oh oregon, bastion of progressiveness, lover of ducks, home to the most strip clubs per capita in the country. i visited you for a month back in 2002 & from what i saw of your quaintish downtown area, you were fairly green (colorwise) & relatively artsy looking. i've always heard good things about you & for a brief while, i even considered moving across the country & becoming a portland resident. you have free downtown public transit & make an effort to limit sprawl & keep your boundaries intact. as part of the 2008 veggie awards, you were named "veg city taking over the world." i love junk like that. you're so durn progressive, portland!

case in point: the film ingredients, which is a "who's who (of) oregon's locavore movement" & made its debut in portland this weekend. as the oregonian's scott learn writes, the film has strong roots in oregon. the producer & cinematographer, brian kimmel, is from portland. in the film, there are appearances from a range of oregon farmers, chefs & agricultural specialists who paint a picture of the "benefits and challenges of buying food from local producers." there have been a million-and-one films about food recently, so i'm interested in seeing whether they cover any new ground or just reinforce what's already been said.

either way, it's a cause i'm fully behind. as learn mentions, larry lev, a "specialist in agricultural marketing and alternative food systems" who's in the film, lays out the benefits of eating locally. lev notes that "some local products may cost more than food transported from large-scale commercial operations...but the products can have superior taste, and the money shoppers spend stays in the area. shopping locally also helps keep agricultural land from being developed...and leads to closer relationships between farmers and consumers." one of the clips in the trailer points out that there are now so few independent farmers in the u.s. that it's no longer listed as an occupation choice on the u.s. census forms. it's sad that we've become so removed from our food sources, but what's even sadder is that until recently, most people didn't really care. maybe another film will change that.