Our food system is fragile.

Long supply chains. Just-in-time logistics. Concentrated production thousands of miles from where people eat. It's optimized for efficiency, not resilience.

We saw glimpses of this fragility in 2020. Empty grocery shelves. Farmers dumping milk while families couldn't find any. A system that works perfectly — until it doesn't.

Economists at ITR Economics have been warning for years that a significant economic disruption is coming in the 2030s (learn more). Whether their timeline is exact or not, the underlying vulnerability is real. Communities that depend entirely on distant supply chains are exposed.

Here's what most people don't realize: there's enormous untapped food production capacity in every neighborhood.

Millions of backyards grow nothing but grass. Millions of gardens produce surplus that gets composted or given away. The knowledge of how to grow food is fading with each generation.

What if we could change that?

What if every third house on your street grew something? What if your neighbor's tomato surplus became your Tuesday dinner? What if communities had local food networks that would keep functioning no matter what happened to global supply chains?

LocalRoots is a marketplace that connects backyard gardeners with neighbors who want fresh, local food.

But the marketplace is just the mechanism. The mission is bigger.

Every new gardener makes their community more resilient. Every backyard that starts producing food is one less family entirely dependent on fragile systems. Every neighbor-to-neighbor transaction strengthens the social fabric that communities need to weather hard times.

Sellers list what they're growing. Buyers browse what's available nearby. Transactions happen directly between neighbors.

No middlemen taking massive cuts. No produce traveling thousands of miles. No anonymous corporate transactions.

Just neighbors helping neighbors.

Imagine your neighborhood:

The family three doors down has a backyard garden that produces more tomatoes, peppers, and squash than they can eat. They sell the extras through LocalRoots.

The retired couple on the corner started beekeeping. Their honey sells out every time they list it.

The young family across the street converted half their lawn to raised beds. Their kids help harvest and are learning where food actually comes from.

When you want fresh produce, you check LocalRoots before driving to the store. Half the time, there's something available within walking distance.

You know your neighbors better. There's a community garden nearby that sells through the platform. The local garden club has tripled in size.

And when economic turbulence hits — because it will — your neighborhood has options. You're not entirely dependent on trucks from a thousand miles away. You have relationships with people who grow food. You might even grow some yourself.

That's resilience. That's what we're building.

The best time to build resilience is before you need it.

Gardens take months to produce. Skills take seasons to develop. Trust networks take years to build.

We're starting now so that when communities need local food infrastructure, it already exists. Not as a replacement for grocery stores, but as a complement. A backup. A strengthening of the local fabric.