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Extreme weather conditions in recent years,  along with economic disruptions triggered in part by the covid-19 pandemic are piling atop longer-term, cumulative trends that point toward a central, harsh reality: Nationwide, mainstream grocery stores will not be able to continue to rely so heavily on California and few other states for filling the grocery shelves with vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat and dairy. Tom Philpott’s book, Perilous Bounty, summarizes this looming threat to food nationwide. Montana can distill the message for itself this way: in the 1950s Montana produced about 85% of the food it consumed, and imported only 15%. Now that ratio is inverted, and then some.  We import ~90% of our food from sources that are vulnerable.

 

In 2021, when Gallatin Valley temperatures reached 106° in June, a month that used to be reliably cool and wet, this escalating reality led our group of farmers to voice our internal reality check, first to each other. We knew that the ideas surrounding climate volatility, income and labor inequality, land and housing access, intertwined nutrition and public health challenges, and industrialization of food supplies were not new to our group, or to most people in the Gallatin Valley. What did feel new, was our willingness as farmers to express our sense of responsibility, urgency, and opportunity, to spark the grassroots action that the whole community could take part in.

HOW IT WORKS
 

[infographic style section with breakdown of the process for easy visualization]