Join a group to enjoy local food, support small farmers, and make new friends

The "Food Team" has five core members, responsible respectively for meetings, finance, warehousing and liaising with small farmers; everyone is a volunteer and no one takes a single cent. Little did I expect that, beyond satisfying my appetite, by taking the trouble to bring locally produced food to my family's dinner table, I would also gain something extra!

Several core members have become good neighbours with whom I can talk about anything, happily share interests and feel in sync. All five of them are women: one is retired, the other four are working people; some are single and unmarried, some are raising young children; their fields of work are the environment and social work, and they are open-hearted with an international outlook.

Having lived in the Belgian countryside for many years, I occasionally lamented that the villagers were conservative, and I too was used to keeping to myself, having little to do with the "cold" villagers, until the "Food Team" appeared and opened a fragrant window onto my rural life. It became a new starting point for my country life, weaving a new social network for me and, in the leisurely yet cold countryside, helping me pair up with fellow villagers of the same interests.

The five core members are the classic "get your hands dirty" type, which is why a year ago they set up and called on more like-minded residents to form the "Food Team" and take charge of responsible eating at their own dinner tables. Each of them, in their own private spheres, such as their children's schools and cultural and arts associations, actively joins together outwardly cold Belgians and brings in a broader vision of citizen participation. Their spirit of pressing a warm face to a cold bottom without fear fills me with admiration.

Food Team20 yearssupporting local agriculture and consumers

In the past, I bought agricultural products individually from nearby small farmers, such as mill flour and mixed grains, organic fruit and vegetables, fair-trade goods and meat, but hampered by a busy family life, it was not long before the consumer lifestyle of driving once a week to a large supermarket to buy everything in one go regained the upper hand. The birth of the Food Team integrated local small farmers, so I can buy all the local farm produce in one go, which is very convenient.

Without the hot-blooded sentiment of Taiwan's housewives' "vegetable basket revolution", but instead inspired by Japan's spirit of mutual support, the ideas of being dissatisfied with food quality and hoping to strengthen the local (agricultural) economy gave birth to the "Food Team" in 1996. Over 20 years, the number of full-time employees has been in the single digits, and 175 Food Teams operate with the help of hundreds of volunteers, uniting the power of picky, food-loving people to support the local agricultural economy, reduce the long-distance transport of food, and present safe and tasty dishes on their own dinner tables.

Shortening the distance from farm to table: getting together in Belgium to buy vegetables from small farmers

There are currently 175 "Food Teams" in northern Belgium, and the number is still growing. If you are interested in joining, you can directly consult the Food Team map and find a Food Team at a suitable distance to join. But please note, having the will does not mean you can join. Limited by storage space and hygiene requirements, every Food Team has a cap on numbers, and you may have to wait three to six months, until a member has not ordered for as long as half a year, before you enter the waiting list.

Brussels is a city of one million people, so there are more options for getting together to buy vegetables from small farmers. See the "organic guide" list, or the GASAP (les groupes d'achat solidaires de l'agriculture paysanne) website map for joint purchasing of agricultural products, to find a suitable group-buying organisation.

The "Network of Responsible Consumers" RCR (Réseau de Consommateurs Responsables) in the Walloon region of southern Belgium has as its first work focus GAC (Groupe d'achat en commun), which is the starting point for finding a suitable place to get together as a group. RCR is indeed an organisation that encourages people to work as "responsible consumers", putting public spirit into practice and practising the circular economy; not only does it get groups together to buy vegetables from small farmers, it also has:

– SEL for swapping goods and borrowing between households (see "No new textbooks for the new term: second-hand public textbooks passed down year after year")

– RES for sharing skills (such as language exchange)

– Repair Café for helping each other repair broken items

– Farm work exchanges and land borrowing for gardens and vegetable plots

All four of the above exist throughout the Dutch-speaking region of northern Belgium, but none is as well integrated as RCR.