The Bottom-Up Revolution - Rerun: Breaking Down Barriers to Local Food

The Bottom-Up Revolution - Rerun: Breaking Down Barriers to Local Food

From Think and Act Locally by Think & Act Locally

May 7, 2026 · 40 min

About this episode

This episode revisits a conversation with Shelby Wild about the impact of local farmers markets on community food systems.

It’s farmers market season, so we’re revisiting this conversation with Shelby Wild, whose work in Lompoc shows how a weekly neighborhood market can reshape a community’s food system. This rerun highlights the deep local relationships, creative partnerships, and small-scale innovations that make markets like Route One a backbone of local resilience and access to good food. Shelby Wild is a mom, lifelong gardener, and executive director of Route One Farmers Market in her hometown of Lompoc, California, which she started in 2018 after her neighborhood farmer’s market closed. The market runs every Sunday and is currently the only one within 50 miles on the central coast of California that offers both EBT and Market Match. Wild and her team strive to make the market a place that brings together the diverse communities that call Lompoc home. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she led the market to be the first in the area to offer produce bags for curbside, contactless pickup, distributing hundreds of bags of local food to those under shelter-in-place restrictions. They’ve also launched the region’s first mobile farmer’s market, a next step in making local food part of everyday…

People in this episode

Guest: Shelby Wild

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Route One Farmers Market, Cold Coast Brewing Co., Dare 2 Dream Farms Homestead, South Side Coffee Co.

Places: Lompoc, California, central coast of California

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