Why I Stopped Trying to Convince People About Local Food

I built FarmPixie because I kept hearing the same thing over and over again:
“I can’t find local food.” "I have a dietary restriction and looking for XYZ." "I can't find XYZ."

And when I looked closer, that wasn’t true.
There were farms. Ranches. Cottage producers. Gardeners. Local food producers.
They just weren’t easy to find and they were tired of shouting into the void.

I assumed that if you built something genuinely useful, people would naturally use it.
That turns out to be only partly true.

What I’ve learned is that usefulness doesn’t create urgency.
Habits do. Convenience does. Timing does.

Local food lives in a strange space. Everyone supports it in theory.
In practice, people are busy, farmers are stretched thin, and no one wants another platform to “keep up with.”

Trying to convince either side to move daily, publicly, online is beyond exhausting for them and for me.

Not everyone has social media. Different demographics and ages use different platforms, yet we all need to eat.
So I’m done pushing.

Not because the work doesn’t matter, but because pushing isn’t the work anymore.

The work is understanding what actually stops adoption.
What farmers are really up against.
What consumers expect versus how they actually behave.
Where good tools fit and where they don’t.

FarmPixie still exists. It’s infrastructure.
A map, not a megaphone.

This space is where I’ll keep notes.
Patterns I’m seeing.
Things that sound good but don’t work.
Things that quietly do.

No campaigns. No convincing.
Just observations, stored somewhere stable.

If you’re thinking seriously about land, food, visibility, or building something that lasts — you may find this useful.

~Kim