Local food systems include community gardens, community-supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, food cooperatives, and community gardens, all of which may be described as direct agricultural markets (Hinrichs (2000) J. Rural Studs 16), or local food networks (Jarosz (2000) Agric. & Hum. Values 17). Local food systems will reduce food miles, and should make for fresher food, and support both localized production practices and local crops or livestock.

Hendrickson and Heffernan (2002) Sociol. Ruralis 42 describe food in a local system as ‘rooted in a space that enables and constrains production and consumption through its own unique characteristics’. Anderson and Cook in J. M. Harris, ed. (2000) argue that local food systems can supplement and complement larger-scale food systems. Bellows and Hamm (2001) Agric. & Hum. Values, 18, 3 concur: ‘the realities of a “local food system” necessitate an integration of local and non-local, and conventional and sustainable in local food systems.’ Feagan (2007) PHG 31, 1 argues that the local in LFS will have to be contingent on the place—its social, ecological, and political circumstances—going on to warn against xenophobia, ‘place purity’, and anti-democratic orientations in local food systems.