Program on the Environment

Personal food sovereignty, meaning one’s ability to produce or gather their own food, is an important element of everyday life. Providing cultural resilience, sustainable nourishment, and better connection to oneself, and the planet, the relationship we have with our ability to grow, produce, or gather local food is essential. However, local food is often not accessible due to a variety of barriers including cost, limited space, lack of knowledge, and more. This makes personal food sovereignty hard to achieve, especially for underserved and marginalized communities, or those living in urban areas. The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between emotional and physical proximity to local food organizations and level of personal food sovereignty, in order to better understand barriers and opportunities. To accomplish this, I interned with Whidbey Island Grown Cooperative, an organization that works to connect local producers with consumers through a website ordering system, to conduct interviews and surveying with local farmers, customers, and residents regarding feelings around local food access. I had personal conversations at individual’s farms and local businesses, and conducted surveying at local farmer’s markets and agriculture workshops. My findings show that individuals have a strong desire to increase their personal food sovereignty, but that many face barriers such as cost, lack of knowledge, limited space, and limited time. Further education and access to local food organizations is vital to alleviate this issue.