Belgian farmers were paid so little for milk they dumped 300 tractors worth of it on the fields, then built their own dairy brand. In 2009, farmers around Ciney sprayed a day's worth of milk onto fields because they were paid about half what it cost to produce. The next month, eight of them founded the Faircoop cooperative and its Fairebel brand to sell milk on their own terms. Independent dairy farmers need your support, see who's nearby on Localize. Sources: Reuters, European Milk Board

Starbucks thought it could out-coffee Australia and got run out in one brutal week. It opened in Sydney in 2000 and grew to roughly 85 stores within eight years. It lost about 105 million dollars charging more for sweeter drinks than local cafes did. In July 2008 it announced 61 stores would close within days, cutting 685 jobs. Skip the chain and back independent coffee roasters with the Localize app. Sources: CNBC

When their neighborhood lost its only grocery store, West Oakland residents opened one and became the owners themselves. Mandela Grocery Cooperative opened on 7th Street in 2009, near the West Oakland BART station. Before it, residents relied mostly on liquor stores and corner shops for fresh food. It is owned and run by the people who work there, sourcing produce from small California farms. Discover small growers like these near you on Localize. Sources: KQED, Co-operative News

A Maine homesteader has spent fifty years keeping alive potato varieties the seed catalogs gave up on. Will Bonsall moved to Industry, Maine in 1971, going door to door for old varieties no catalog sold. Potatoes only survive by being replanted from the tuber, so each variety goes back in the ground yearly. Find farmers still growing heirloom varieties on Localize. Sources: Fedco

American farmers with no heirs are matching with young strangers through land link programs and handing over farms. I don’t think people understand how serious this really is. The average age of a farmer is nearly 60 with nobody coming to replace them and with no farmers, there is no food: First understand how bad things already have gotten. The number of US farms has fallen from a peak of ~7 million 100 years ago to less than 2 million today. Only 296,480 producers (9%) were under 35, while 1.29 million were 65 or older. Just last year we lost 15,000 farms. Not a single state added farms. That’s why we need to connect retiring farmers with beginning farmers who need land. Farm-link programs matter because they can make land visible to people outside inherited family networks, help an older farmer find a values-compatible successor, protect an operating farm from being taken over by a data center. This also preserves years of farm-specific knowledge through mentorship. We need younger people to take over farms and help save our food system. You can also help in other ways, though. The Localize App connects these farmers directly to consumers so they can sell all their products with no middlemen and stay in business. Try it today to shop from 50,000+ producers selling grassfed beef, pastured eggs, fresh produce, and more.

Austin volunteers built a food forest anyone can pick from, and now they want to triple it. Festival Beach Food Forest sits on city parkland with no fences, open to anyone around the clock. Neighbors pushed for years before the council approved a pilot plot for them to plant. This August a campaign launched to raise $100,000 and grow it to three and a half acres. See who grows fruit and nuts near you on Localize. Sources: CultureMap

Jackson, Wyoming is buried in snow most of the year, so two women built a three story farm instead. Nona Yehia and Penny McBride opened Vertical Harvest in 2016 beside a parking garage downtown. The tenth of an acre building grows up to 100,000 pounds a year, about what ten acres of field would. Find greenhouse growers near you on Localize. Sources: CNN

A former pro basketball player put his retirement money into Milwaukee's last city farm. Will Allen bought the land and an old greenhouse four miles from the nearest grocery store. Growing Power made its own soil from scraps and trained neighborhood kids, until debts closed it in 2017. Support a local farm like this one on Localize. Sources: Milwaukee NNS

Spain now forces every restaurant to hand over your leftovers in a free container, or face fines up to half a million euros. Law 1/2025 became fully binding on April 3, 2026, after a grace period for businesses. Wasting food that's still fit to eat starts at 2,001 euros, and repeat violations can reach 500,000. Ditch corporate food waste, buy straight from farms that use what they grow on Localize. Sources: The Local Spain, Majorca Daily Bulletin

One discarded cod's skin and scales, a British student calculated, hold enough waste to make 1,400 plastic bags. Lucy Hughes bound that fish waste with Sussex coast red seaweed to create MarinaTex, a bioplastic that looks like plastic wrap but breaks down in four to six weeks in a home compost bin. Britain's fishing industry discards almost 500,000 tonnes of processing waste a year, most of it buried or burned. Find local fishermen near you on Localize. Sources: Dezeen, University of Sussex

Japan just made elementary school lunch free for every public school kid in the country. Starting this April the national government is covering the cost, and parents fill out no paperwork at all. About four in ten towns were already offering free lunch on their own, seven times as many as in 2017. The worry now is quality, since rising food prices are squeezing a budget of about 270 yen a meal. Find the 50,000 farms near you on the Localize app. Sources: Jiji Press

Portugal pulled soda and candy out of every public hospital vending machine to protect the patients inside. A 2016 health ministry order stripped soft drinks, chips, sweets and fast food from vending machines in every state run hospital and health center. A later study of thirty hospital cafés still found soft drinks in eight out of ten. Skip the vending machine, buy from a real farm on Localize. Sources: ESM Magazine

Berkeley just banned candy and soda from the checkout line, a US first. In 2020 the city council voted unanimously for the country's first healthy checkout law. Sugary or salty items can no longer sit within three feet of the register at larger stores. Skip the impulse aisle and find real local food growers on Localize. Sources: ABC7, WTOP

Mexico became the first country in North America to ban chips and soda at every single school.

Two Vermont brothers spent ten weeks blasting a hillside with dynamite to build their own cheese caves. Andy and Mateo Kehler bought a farm in Greensboro in 1998 and spent five years rebuilding it. In 2008 they opened seven vaults inside the hill, 22,000 square feet built for aging. Aging takes most of the labor in a wheel of cheese, so nearby dairies now send theirs to the Kehlers too. Support small cheesemakers near you, found through Localize. Sources: Wikipedia, Saxelby Cheese

A Chinese farmer spent six years figuring out how to grow pears shaped like tiny Buddhas. Gao Xianzhang of Hebei clamps a plastic mold around each young pear and removes it once the fruit fills the shape. His first batch of 10,000 sold in 2009, and buyers now give them as gifts into Vietnam for the New Year. He holds a patent on the mold, and the pears sell for roughly 7 dollars each. See what local fruit growers near you are growing, on Localize. Sources: ABC News

Maryland just let home bakers sell up to $100,000 a year, and every single lawmaker voted yes. House Bill 535 passed the House 136 to 0 and the Senate 42 to 0. The new cap, double the old $50,000 limit, takes effect October 1. It covers jams, breads, candies, and baked goods sold from home kitchens, at markets, or by delivery. Find the home bakers selling from their own kitchens near you on Localize. Sources: Maryland General Assembly

Corner stores in Philadelphia's Strawberry Mansion sold chips and candy but almost no fresh produce, so one couple started trucking in farm food instead. Tatiana Garcia Granados and Haile Johnston moved there in 2002 and launched The Common Market in 2008 with one truck. It now supplies local farm food to more than 500 school campuses and tops 25 million dollars a year. Support family farms near you, find them on Localize. Sources: RSF Social Finance, The Philadelphia Citizen

One pepper barely exists outside a single Florida town, and the families there like it that way. The datil pepper has grown in St Augustine backyards for over a century and almost nowhere else. Minorcan families turn it into hot sauce and chowder recipes passed down for generations. Find a pepper grower like this one near you on Localize. Sources: UF IFAS, Slow Food USA

A first generation dairy farmer just sued the state of Wisconsin after they tried to bankrupt his farm despite them following all the rules. Out of nowhere, the state suspended the farm's milk license, fining them $10,000 initially and more money everyday if they don’t shut down. But they aren’t rolling over, now fighting back against the system for every small farm in America that’s a victim of Government overreach: Grassway Organics, the East Troy farm run by Chaz Self and his family, filed suit against Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) on September 28, 2026, along with a request for a temporary restraining order. Grassway Organics says state regulators worked with it for six years on a member owned dairy co-op model until something changed. The current operation is a diversified, grass-based organic farm rather than only a commodity dairy. This is not a conventional mega dairy farm - it’s a small local farm-store selling meats, eggs, fresh dairy and putting on wood-fired pizza events and tours for the community. All of a sudden, they were attacked by the state of Wisconsin, who tried to hit them with thousands of dollars in fines and tried to shut them down. The farm sued and filed a Temporary Restraining Order this past week and the state hearing is not scheduled until May 2027. A 4th generation farmer chimed in and exposed what might really be going on “800+ family farms in Wisconsin alone went bellyup even with subsidies during trumps 1st term due to grain wars. There has to be a bigger reason WHY Wisconsin being targeted…” - @starflowerwing Either way, this is plain government overreach shutting down healthy foods trying to serve the area. They are asking their community to support their battle that will cost legal fees of $150,000, and you can find their GoFundMe @graze_and_gainz link in bio. You can also see Grassway Organics on the Localize Farmers Market app and help support them directly when they beat the state.