5 Sustainable Food Trends to Watch in 2010: #3 Internet Explosion

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-12-28 06:00:00 UTC
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The third installment of my round-up of top five sustainable food trends to watch in 2010 concerns the old series of tubes where you're reading this right now: the Web. While I'd say this might well be the most important long-term trend to watch for sustainable food, it is unclear to me what stage we are at with this — how much progress will Web-based grower-consumer digital connection make in 2010? We'll have to watch and see. But in the meantime, it would be worth getting familiar with what is going on in this field because this is big.

As Timothy Will said in my recent Food Files interview, Internet "is the key" to reinvigorating this country's sustainable food system. Small farmers are, by definition, isolated from the majority of their potential customers, who congregate in cities. Farmers markets can get them limited access to the buying public, but such face-to-face marketplaces have limited scope and are costly and inefficient methods of selling compared to digital storefronts where many growers can work together to steward a local marketplace. If small farmers are going to compete with — and outdo — the big dogs in this modern world, they need to be using modern tools that allow them to sell their wares quickly, efficiently and safely.

The last year has seen a lot of development in this field, including the third upgrade of Farmers Fresh Market site that Tim Will helped created, a beta version Ecotrust's Food Hub portal and the launch of FarmsReach, an "online food farm marketplace." Now there are even iPhone apps — the Locavore and iLocavore — for locating local food. Supermarket News has the beat on this trend: "the local food movement seems tailor-made for the digital age."

Stay tuned for trend #4 tomorrow.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations.
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