Local Food Networks represent a fundamental reimagining of how societies produce, distribute, and consume food, shifting from centralized, industrialized commodity systems to decentralized, community-based networks that prioritize relationships, sustainability, and food sovereignty. These networks encompass diverse institutional forms—including Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, regional food hubs, farmers markets, farm-to-school programs, seed saving networks, urban gardens, food policy councils, and food sovereignty movements—that collectively create alternatives to industrial agriculture while building local economic resilience, environmental regeneration, and food security.
The local food networks innovation domain operates at the intersection of multiple movements and perspectives. It integrates sustainable agriculture principles that regenerate soil and biodiversity, food justice frameworks that center the voices and agency of historically marginalized communities (particularly BIPOC farmers and communities experiencing food apartheid), environmental stewardship that restores ecosystems, community development that builds local economic power, and public health initiatives that improve nutrition and food security. Local food networks are fundamentally about redistributing power and control over food systems from distant corporations to farmers, communities, and eaters who directly benefit from food production.
At its core, local food networks are built on relationships—between farmers and consumers, between producers and institutions, between knowledge holders and learners. These relationships replace the anonymity and distance of industrial supply chains with transparency, accountability, and mutual benefit. Whether through CSAs where members share risks and harvests with farmers, food hubs that aggregate local production for institutional buyers, or seed libraries that preserve and share agricultural biodiversity, these systems create feedback loops that make food systems responsive to community needs rather than market speculation.
Food sovereignty—the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems—stands as a central principle animating these networks. Rather than accepting food as a commodity produced by distant corporations and distributed through industrial channels, food sovereignty movements (particularly those led by Indigenous peoples, small farmers, and BIPOC communities) reclaim the right to determine agricultural practices, preserve seed diversity, maintain cultural food traditions, and exercise local control over food system institutions.