Just a little more than 1,000 miles separate deep-in-the-Ozarks Hammond Mill Camp and Washington D.C., but the two points on the national map got a lot closer during the Ozark Area Community Congress (OACC). Kaitlyn McConnell participated in both, and files this report. 

On Oct. 6, deep in the Mark Twain National Forest, they were linked by knowledge through “Revitalizing Local Food Systems,” a panel discussion during OACC, an annual gathering related to sustainability and ways to better care for the earth.

Presenters on the panel represented a variety of backgrounds and expertise related to local food — and several also participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which in 2023 featured the Ozarks in Washington D.C. as one of its two programs. 

Sasha Daucus, part of OACC’s leadership team, moderated the panel, which was comprised of Maile Auterson of Springfield Community Gardens; Wren Haffner, a bioregional homesteader; Hannah Hemmelgarn, with MU’s Center for Agroforestry; and Kelda Lorax, an organic market garden leader. 

During the Smithsonian festival, local expertise was shared through panel discussions, such as one titled Women Leaders in Plant Knowledge, which included Auterson, Jones and Hemmelgarn. Several of the participants were also featured presenters throughout the two-week event in D.C., with dedicated booth space on the National Mall to share information about their food and farming experiences in the Ozarks. 

“I’m really super pleased to be sitting here with people who are here,” Daucus said, who also participated in the SFF for her plant knowledge. “Two of them were speakers at the festival, and two of them were people that I wished were. This is also a dream come true.

“To me, this is, I think, arguably one of the most important questions that we face.” 

Seated in the front of Jantz Chapel, a wooden building in an area cleared of trees, they and others shared about their projects, experiences, blessings and challenges when working with local food – and why it’s important to put greater emphasis on making these systems as local as possible.

Some of shifts would require societal change, others involve keeping things within the ability of individual decision-making. 

“Most of my work is re-localizing the economies, and the way I’m helping to do that – and there are many of us doing that – is by making everything small-scale again,” said Auterson, who referenced “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered,” a book published in 1973 that focuses on sustainable, small changes that ultimately impact the world. 

Some of her efforts are seen through Springfield Community Gardens, which today includes 16 community gardens, 3 urban farms, a community food forest, and test kitchen. Those tools are used to help grow and offer fresh produce and train new farmers, realities that are necessary in helping educate about the importance of local food. 

“Small works. Small is human-scale,” she added. “Small is about putting value in the right place. It’s not necessarily in the market economy. So how do we take care of one another and keep things small and resilient?” 

While each participant shared ideas and thoughts from her unique perspective, a common theme was the need for speed – to have systems in place and collaboration – to help fill gaps across the board. 

Lorax, the market leader from the Oklahoma Ozarks, shared a past experience with community producers that reminded that not everyone has to do everything. Even though the market was small, she said, it showed that reliance on neighbors for food was within reach. 

“At one point, I was so proud of that market because I and a couple other people were bringing in vegetables; this one lady with three pecan trees was bringing pecans; and a couple of teenagers were making food, and we had a honey lady,” Lorax said. “You’d look at these little booths and you’re like, ‘Wow, this town could really start feeding itself.’”

If people could get past cultural hangups, she said, perhaps there are scenarios where one person in a community provided its eggs; another, its pork. Yet sometimes, barriers to collaboration can come through cultural expectations and norms. An example is in urban areas, where neighbors spray their lawns for weeds. 

“I think there are different sorts of levels of thinking about this,” said Hemmelgarn. “I live in town in Columbia, and our neighbors spray their lawns, and we really struggle to grow food that isn’t poisoned. And it really sucks. That’s one of the things – there are so many examples of people in neighborhoods around town who have agreements together; ‘This is what we care about. This is what we want to prioritize. Maybe it will look a little messy but that’s OK, we’re feeding each other.’”  

Discussion around collaboration also included mention of saving seeds – and working to find varieties that grow well in the Ozarks – which Haffner said represents “the most fundamental aspect of, to me, what it really means to re-localize a food system.”

An example she shared centered around squash, a fruit that she’s historically had challenges in growing. The journey led her to winter squash, which has developed its own legacy. 

“I really focused on winter squash, and incorporated my community into that because it matters what my community thinks. It matters what kind of squash they like to eat, and I want them to be able to grow, too – easily,” Haffner continued. “People have taken on the seeds, and I can’t really tell you how joyous it is for me to have people come to me and they’re like, ‘I grew that squash, and it did this for me and I loved it. And I shared it with the neighbor, too.’

“I think that it comes down to all of us to hold these seeds and to share that back and forth. And that way, it’s not on anyone’s shoulders, and we’re very resilient; if I lose the seed, then someone else is holding it. When you carry passion and you love the food, you’re going to want to keep interacting with it.” 

Those efforts to work with plants that naturally grow in the Ozarks are found through research around elderberries. 

“Missouri is the Number One elderberry-producing state in the United States now, because there are people who are excited about elderberries and they got other folks on board,” Hemmelgarn said. “Now you’ve got this massive research program for elderberry horticulture. This is a native plant that maybe 10 years ago wasn’t on very many peoples’ radars the way it is now.

“If we can find these little niche pockets, we don’t have to have all of the infrastructure and equipment to do the processing. We can come together and have these cooperatives or just food hubs, different processing networks, so it’s possible for people to be able to grow these plants and feed each other in ways that mirror more the landscape…”

Ultimately, the hope and challenges came back to a central idea.