Mission and Vision

The NYSAWG mission is to contribute to the building of local food systems that bring healthy local food to local consumers every day of every week and thereby realize food justice, economic justice, environmental justice, and social justice. Our mission has value and meaning for low-income communities and communities of color—in urban and rural settings—that lack both access to fresh healthy food and access to the resources needed to build self-reliance.

Liz Henderson, owner of Peacework Organic Farm, Newark, New York

NYSAWG envisions economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just community-based food systems that provide community food security for all New Yorkers, regardless of income level. Community food security means that all people at all times should have access to affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate food from local non-emergency sources.

The current federally-supported food system, originally intended to ensure a healthy diet for all Americans and to support American farmers, has not achieved its objectives. Industrial agriculture puts small family farmers and small scale food processors out of business; severely harms local businesses supplying the food and agriculture sector; disrupts the supply of fresh, local affordable food to local communities; degrades the environment with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and the concentration of animal waste; and decimates rural communities.

In contrast, local food systems deliver multiple benefits.

• Local food systems can provide community food security by delivering fresh, clean, whole affordable food to people who now lack access to nutritious whole food.
• Local food systems can repair economic disparities. Household food insecurity and poverty go hand-in-hand. Local ownership of the means of production and exchange can build community assets, self-reliance and eventually wealth.
• Local food systems can repair the environment. Low-input, sustainable farming practices establish restorative systems where every output becomes an input for the next level of production. These practices reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They build and restore the soil which nurtures the plants that eventually nurture us.
• Local food systems producing healthy whole food can repair epidemics like obesity, Type II diabetes and other conditions that result from the consumption of manufactured edible substitute substances (MESSes) by the industrial food system.

In summary, we can solve many of the problems plaguing our communities through building local food systems. We have the resources within our own localities. Local farmers producing food for their neighbors build local ownership of the businesses, engage in values-based local food trading, create both jobs and new income, restore the environment, and provide us with the sustenance we need to maintain our personal and our community health. Local food systems offer the potential to sustain both individuals and the communities in which they live and work.