Spring, it seems, is always a busy time. As the days lengthen to match the night at the vernal equinox, it appears that our to-do lists have lengthened as well. No longer can the darkness of the winter nights lull us into laziness; spring is here and there is work to be done. For me, this means honing in on my summer plans and making headway on my capstone research project.

Conducting a Foodshed Assessment of Lopez Island, Washington: 

This year I will be returning to beautiful Lopez Island, Washington, the home of my internship last summer and the inspiration behind this blog. While my summer on Lopez taught me many things, it seems to have left me with more questions than answers, as these experiences often do. During the three months that I lived and worked on Lopez, I got a taste of the unique lifestyle perpetuated by this island community and the pride and dedication that people on Lopez have for their food system. There are over thirty farms on the tiny island of Lopez that raise vegetables, meats, grains, fruit, and seafood, much of which is sold directly on Lopez and the surrounding islands. Home gardens are abundant, and so is a culture of food ethics, locavorism, and seasonal eating. When it comes to the foodshed, Lopez Island is a role model of civic agriculture and regenerative economy. I am excited to rejoin the Lopez Island community this summer to participate in their local living adventure.

The term “foodshed” refers to the geographic area from which food is derived to feed a population. In the modern global food system, foodsheds frequently wrap around all corners of the Earth.

Even on Lopez, daily shipments from off the island supply much of the food that people there consume. And just as food is shipped in from off-island, so too is food grown on Lopez sold to outside markets as far away as Seattle. In order to reduce the distance food travels from producer to consumer, foodsheds must be appropriately resized based on their population. One challenge to the relocalization of foodsheds is the fact that even in the technological 21st-century, we have relatively little information about where our food is coming from. In order to truly incorporate local agriculture as a staple food source, we need to be able to map our foodsheds and understand the foodshed’s implication on our diets.

In other words, before a community can achieve self-reliance, they need to conduct a self-assessment to figure out a baseline “where we are at” measurement. During the summer months, as part of my senior research at Sterling, I will be working with the Lopez Community Land Trust  to conduct a foodshed assessment of Lopez Island in order to establish this baseline. The foodshed assessment involves gathering information about the flow of food from producer to consumer on Lopez Island. By surveying producers, distributors, and consumers on the island, I will generate data about food production and consumption on Lopez. Through community visioning and outreach, I will seek to understand the needs and goals of the islanders regarding their food system. Finally, by analyzing this data and pairing these results with the goals of the community, I will create a “map” of the foodshed that can be used by the island as they plan the future of their food system.

It may seem premature to be writing about the summer on only the second official day of spring, especially when there is still snow on the ground. But as the season unfolds, as the winter melts and tree buds burst into leaf, time counts down until the summer. I’ve been thinking about this project for many months already, and now the planning process has begun. As excited as I am to return to Lopez, I hope the summer doesn’t come too fast – there’s still a lot of work to be done this spring in anticipation!

Keep watching this blog as the seasons change: I’ll be using it to track my progress on the Foodshed Assessment – so stay tuned!