Resources and Opportunities : Northern Arizona Food and Agriculture Council

Northern Arizona has embraced the local foods movement with the Flagstaff Community Market, the Flagstaff Community Supported Agriculture Project, and the Canyon Country Fresh Campaign. Yet significant wealth continues to drain away from our communities as local ranchers and farmers sell their products into the globalized economy while community members buy the same items produced in distant locations for 4-5 times what our local producers get at the farm gate.

According to Gary Nabhan, Director of NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments, in Coconino County in 2002, of the $11.1 million in crop and livestock sales only $53,000 (about 0.5 per cent) of the county’s beef, lamb and vegetables were sold by ranchers and farmers directly to local consumers. However, the county’s consumers purchased $37 million just in meat, poultry, fish and eggs from elsewhere, and at higher prices! In short, local consumers could absorb virtually all the meat products produced in Coconino and Navajo Counties, if it were more directly available to them.

The non-profit Northern Arizona Food and Agriculture Council was formed to build more collaboration and infrastructure for accessing more local foods and keeping our communities healthy. For more information on NAFAC, please read “Sticky Money: Keeping Our Food Dollars Closer to Home” by Gary Nabhan in the May-June 2007 Friends of Flagstaff's Future newsletter, The Voice.

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