About This Campaign

Thanksgiving presents us with a unique opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the conclusion of the harvest in the company of family, friends and community. It's also an opportunity to choose from a bounty of locally grown foods for our holiday meal that promote the health of our farms and farmers, our individual health and that of our communities and our environment.

In 2007, Cascade Harvest Coalition initiated the Eat Local for Thanksgiving campaign to reconnect our Thanksgiving traditions with local agricultural traditions by focusing awareness on the connections gained in buying locally. To do this, we asked individuals to "Take the Pledge" and purchase one locally grown item for their Thanksgiving meal.

This year, instead of pledging to purchase just one locally grown item, we ask that you add as many locally grown, raised, and produced foods as part of your Thanksgiving meal as possible.

Why the change? The backbone of what puts fresh, healthy and local food on our tables is disappearing at an alarming rate. As the saying goes, "No farms, No food," and the message is simple and couldn't be more clear. America's farms and ranches are becoming an endangered species.

According to the American Farmland Trust we are losing our finest agriculture land to development at an accelerating rate. In this country alone, we have been losing more than an acre of farmland per minute as millions of acres are converted to developed uses. Nearly 91% of this country's fruit and 78% of our vegetables are grown near metro regions (such as Puget Sound), where they are in the path of development.

There is no better way to express our gratitude for local farmers and be active stewards of our agriculture heritage. On the day we join together and give thanks, we ask that you "Eat Local for Thanksgiving" — and help keep local, sustainable farms thriving for generations to come.