Leaving it on the table

El Cabrero has been an inconsistent blogger lately, but it's been a hard winter so far and I've been running around a lot.

On Tuesday, I attended a conference organized by the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition. I'm glad I did, because it reminded me that, despite all evidence, there are good things going on.

The local food movement in this state--which touches on things like health, poverty, education, economic development, reducing carbon emissions, energy efficiency and most other things that matter--really has made some strides in recent years.

Here's one statistic tossed around today worth keeping in mind. West Virginians spend around $7 billion per year on food. Less than $1 billion of that is produced here. This means we're leaving a lot on the table as far as meeting local needs is concerned, and even more as far as we think about exporting.

So far, so good, but there's a lot more progress we can make.