So where does your food come from?

Organizers of the annual Kentucky Local Food System Summit and Feast event hope that more of it will come from local farms.

The event brings together local farms, chefs and other experts to give people the opportunity to sample dishes and see how our local food system works.

Everyone eats, and so we all have a role to play in our local food system.

This event is really designed to bring together, local food systems.

Stakeholders, practitioners.

If you're interested in food, if you're an eater, if you're cooking food, if you're growing food, if you're buying food, we want you to be at the summit.

We've, partnered with food chain, for a number of years.

But this is a really, we're always looking for new ways to partner, and to we already work with them to connect, them with farmers that they're sourcing for, for their meal kits, that they're providing their culinary classes and soon to be their, green grocer.

And so this was just a really natural opportunity to again, bring together, the dynamic chefs that they bring together for feast and that that together with our, our key stakeholders for our summit.

One of the things that we've really wanted to do over the years is we really are hyper focus here at Food Chain on Access and Education go hand in hand.

You have to provide access and education if you really want to see changes occurring across the food system.

Our mission is to forge links between community and fresh food, and we do that using education and demonstration of sustainable food systems.

And so we're working, across the entire food system, which really is a complex issue.

But when it comes to providing that access to fresh, we are really focused on local.

And for us, local means, Kentucky farmers, there's food available.

It's just putting together the pieces to get folks linked in in the food system.

I think some of the biggest challenges are there might not be accessible food, healthy food accessible in a community.

There might be only, you know, big box stores or dollar stores available in the community.

And I think some of the the issues are there are there's plenty of food throughout Kentucky.

There's so many farmers doing good work.

But folks might not know how to use that food.

We really want farmers to be household names.

They should be.

They're the ones growing the food.

They're out there, rain or shine.

They deserve our praise and they deserve all of our support.

Changes at the federal level, both in terms of trade policy and, the elimination of some really critical federal funding, for farmers and local food systems will definitely impact Kentucky farmers.

It certainly feels like the conversations that we're going to be having, are going to be more important than ever.

And so not only were you celebrating the good work that's happening in Kentucky, it's kind of a critical juncture for, local food systems in Kentucky.

But more broadly, across the United States.

And so I think it's just an opportunity to bring people together to, to really think through what are our next steps and get creative and again, gather inspiration from being together and, trying to chart a positive path forward.

The hallmark of this summit is the networking.

It's bringing people together from across the state who are doing fantastic work in their local communities.

They're sharing about that work.

They're getting inspired to take home nuggets.

You know, the things that they learned, they're making new connections within our state, and in our region.

And I think that only strengthens, Kentucky.

To learn more, visit them online at food chain lex.org.