permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

NEW BOOK/The Local Food Revolution
How Humanity Will Feed Itself in Uncertain Times
Author: Michael Brownlee
http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/the-local-food-revolution/ 
<http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/the-local-food-revolution/>
Demonstrating that humanity faces an imminent and prolonged global food 
crisis, Michael Brownlee issues a clarion call and manifesto for a 
revolutionary movement to localize the global food supply. He lays out a 
practical guide for those who hope to navigate the challenging process of 
shaping the local or regional food system, providing a roadmap for embarking 
on the process of righting the profoundly unsustainable and already-failing 
global industrialized food system. Written to inform, inspire, and empower 
anyone—farmers or ranchers, community gardeners, aspiring food entrepreneurs, 
supply chain venturers, commercial food buyers, restaurateurs, investors, 
community food activists, non-profit agencies, policy makers, or local 
government leaders—who hopes to be a catalyst for change, this book provides 
a blueprint for economic action, with specific suggestions that make the 
process more conscious and deliberate.

Brownlee, cofounder of the nonprofit Local Food Shift Group, maps out the 
underlying process of food localization and outlines the route that 
communities, regions, and foodsheds often follow in their efforts to take 
control of food production and distribution. By sharing the strategies that 
have proven successful, he charts a practical path forward while indicating 
approaches that otherwise might be invisible and unexplored. Stories and 
interviews illustrate how food localization is happening on the ground and in 
the field. Essays and thought-pieces explore some of the challenging ethical, 
moral, economic, and social dilemmas and thresholds that might arise as the 
local food shift develops. For anyone who wants to understand, in concrete 
terms, the unique challenges and extraordinary opportunities that present 
themselves as we address one of the most urgent issues of our time, The Local 
Food Revolution is an indispensable resource.




 “This is the local food book that needed to be written. As Brownlee so 
chillingly details, our globalized food system is in crisis. Food scarcity 
looms in the all-too-near future. If we’re to continue getting square meals 
three times a day, we too need to join this quest to localize our food 
supply.” —Tim Rinne, state coordinator, Nebraskans for Peace; cofounder, 
Hawley Hamlet Community Garden; and charter member, Lincoln-Lancaster Food 
Policy Council

“The Local Food Revolution is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about 
the current state of the industrial, global food system and who asks, ‘What 
can I do to help awaken my foodshed?’” —Veronica House, PhD, associate 
faculty director for service-learning and outreach, University of Colorado, 
Boulder

“What begins as Michael Brownlee’s own journey from concerned activist to 
community catalyst becomes a handbook for ‘deep revolution,’ with local and 
regional food systems at the center of it all. For those concerned that 
change is not enough, he offers not just a revolutionary call to action, but 
also a new path forward.” —Philip Ackerman-Leist, professor of sustainable 
agriculture and food systems, Green Mountain College, Vermont, and author of 
Rebuilding the Foodshed

“Mixing history and philosophy with a hopeful yet realistic call to action, 
Michael Brownlee’s profound work demands immediate attention. One of the 
single most important elements of our fate as a species is the state of our 
global food system grid as it exists in small local equations. Brownlee gives 
us the perfect opportunity and the tools to once and for all solve for x. The 
Local Food Revolution is the blueprint for the future wellness of our 
planetary community.”
—Daniel Asher, executive chef, River and Woods and co-chair, Chefs 
Collaborative/Colorado

“Michael Brownlee’s book is a wide-ranging discussion from his early 
recognition of the changes affecting our planet and his important, ongoing 
identification of and engagement with ideas and models from influential 
leaders, thinkers, and movers (of which he is one). Rather than just observe 
and report, he is a leader who participates, implements, tests, and catalyzes 
emerging ideas and concepts. This book is an inspiration to anyone who feels 
our problems are too big to address and that we can't do anything; they 
aren’t, and we can.”
—Jack Round, Transition Omaha, Let’s Eat Investment Group

“The multi-layered global crisis, and in particular, abrupt climate change, 
demand nothing less than a local food revolution that reaches far beyond 
farmers markets and buying local. Every human life going forward depends on a 
radical transformation of our relationship with food and how we provide it 
for our communities. Michael Brownlee maps this revolution with laser 
clarity. If you eat, you must read this book.”
—Carolyn Baker, PhD, author of Love In The Age of Ecological Apocalypse and 
Collapsing Consciously

“Few evolutionary catalysts see the nexus between local food systems and deep 
cultural transformation with the clarity of Michael Brownlee. Want to find 
the connections between Thomas Paine, Christopher Alexander, and the organic 
farmer down the street? They are here for you in this book.”
—Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money and author of Inquiries into the Nature 
of Slow Money

“As humankind moves towards an uncertain future facing issues related to 
climate change, water quantity/quality, healthy soil for food production, and 
more food-resilient communities, The Local Food Revolution provides a road 
map for those brave enough to embark on its bold manifesto. An early food 
system pioneer who catalyzed evolutionary change and helped revolutionize the 
future of local food for Colorado, Michael Brownlee provides a direct and 
biting reflection on what it will take to revolutionize our local food system 
while meeting the difficult food demands forecast for our future. His 
insights and recommendations are well-researched, thoughtful, and brutally 
honest.”
—Rusty Collins, Denver County Director, Colorado State University Extension

“Michael Brownlee raises this ‘call to farms’ (local of course) to inspire an 
urgently needed revolution in our food system. The urgency is born of 
declining resources and increasingly disruptive climate change. He gives this 
call an evolutionary context: every collapse is followed by an emergence of 
something completely new. He envisions foodsheds that are regional, 
regenerative and restorative, in stark contrast to the rapacious industrial 
food system. He invites us to ‘bring food home again’ as ‘a choice for life 
itself.’ Stories of pioneers revolutionizing all facets of emerging foodsheds 
are a real treasure. Learn from Michael’s decade of experience cultivating a 
‘local food shift’ in Colorado to empower food localization wherever you 
are.” 
—Janaia Donaldson, Peak Moment Television

“This book needs to be widely read by those in the local food movement. 
Michael Brownlee explains the local food revolution as emerging from an 
evolutionary shift in ethical and cultural values occurring at the deepest 
levels of human consciousness, a ‘deep revolution.’ He provides a wealth of 
philosophical insights and practical information about how to be an effective 
‘evolutionary catalyst’ but stresses that deep revolutions arise from within 
and must be nurtured rather than developed. The local food revolution can 
only be sustained by a spiritual reawakening to the inherent sacredness of 
food and farming.”
—John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics, University of 
Missouri, Columbia, MO and author of The Essentials of Economic 
Sustainability, Sustainable Capitalism, and Crisis and Opportunity

“For those of us weighed down with concern for our children’s prospects for a 
safe and abundant life, The Local Food Revolution provides a high-minded but 
thoroughly practical primer on how to get started, now, to change that doubt 
into hope. This book will be recognized as a classic reference that every 
food activist will keep near at hand for centuries to come.”
—Alan Lewis, Government Affairs and Food and Agriculture Policy, Natural 
Grocers

“Telling a personal journey of transitioning to local food as 
calling—intense, deep, and transforming—this book holds an important place 
for those currently involved in localizing foodsheds, and helps us all 
understand the urgency of saving and re-vitalizing our food systems locally.”
—Nanna Meyer, PhD, associate professor of health sciences, University of 
Colorado, Colorado Springs

“Few people in the world have thought longer and deeper about the local food 
revolution than Michael Brownlee. In a journey reminiscent of Zen and the Art 
of Motorcycle Maintenance, Brownlee traces the evolution of his work in 
Colorado and the evolution of his thinking about the movement’s global 
importance. He reveals himself to be as much a philosopher as a practitioner, 
with provocative, invaluable, and entertaining insights for anyone who wants 
to reshape his or her own community.”
—Michael H. Shuman, community economist and author of The Local Economy 
Solution

“Buckminster Fuller could have written the preface to The Local Food 
Revolution: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To 
change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” 
A deep bow to Michael Brownlee, who is serving as a lead catalyst and 
synthesizer of this new model. Join the emerging global awakening to beat the 
clock of mass extinction.”  
—John Steiner and Margo King, transpartisan/sacred activists