I think this is a wonderful book. It contains everything you ever wanted to know about how to go about setting up a variety of community-based schemes around the theme of localising our food supplies. Whether it is a symbolic planting of a couple of apple trees in your street or something as complex as a fully fledged Community Supported Agriculture scheme, this book will inform, educate and inspire.
Yet, for me, it has one fatal flaw. It doesn't speak to everyone. It will not appeal to those who cannot, for whatever reason, get involved in a CSA, those who have no time for guerrilla gardening or those who still believe that Waitrose is a `local' supermarket. Any book on the subject of `local food,' produced by the Transition movement, should be inclusive. It should enfold us all, but I feel this book does not, and here we see another spot of tarnish on the halo of this noble movement.
Despite Transition's caveats and `cheerful disclaimer', it is in danger of falling into the same eco-chic trap that has ensnared the Slow Food movement. Although Rob Hopkins' original vision is stunning in its simplicity and its desire to be inclusive, and the concept has at its heart a self-destruct button for the steering groups that float each new `initiative,' it seems that most Transition groups cannot shake off their initiators. It appears to be all too easy for a new initiative to be `run' by its organisers. This book will not help to counteract this `committee' effect, rather it will have a tendency to entrench it, being read only by those to whom such projects are tangible or, at the very least, aspirational. It will not be read by those who most need help in understanding the true issues surrounding our globalised food system, those whose contribution could be powerful if only they were shown why and how they can be involved in the change without necessarily being part of a project.