GOING LOCAL Week 2009 will be celebrated in the Hoosier state from Sept. 6-12. It is a one week "challenge" to Indiana citizens to eat at least one Indiana locally grown or produced food at each meal during the seven-day event.

The objectives of GOING LOCAL Week are to:

• Create an appreciation for the abundance and diversity of the Indiana food shed.

• Make Indiana citizens more aware of the availability of local foods in their own communities.

• Provide support and recognition for Indiana local food producers.

• Increase Indiana residents' consumption of locally grown/produced foods in a long-term effort to encourage them to regularly purchase more locally produced items for their weekly meals so that the consumption of Indiana locally grown and produced foods will become the norm, not a novelty at Hoosier dinner tables across the state.

GOING LOCAL Week was created in 2008 by Indiana local food blogger, Victoria Wesseler, who authors the GOING LOCAL site (www.goinglocal-info.com). She notes, "If half the families in Indiana shifted $6.25 of their current weekly food budget to the purchase of Indiana grown or produced local food this effort would provide an annual contribution of $300 million into the local Indiana economy. Is this impressive? Yes, but that's not the final number. Studies consistently show that a dollar spent locally will multiply itself by 3 to 5 times making the actual economic impact of that one dollar in the local community where it was spent far greater than a buck. Initially it may be impossible to believe but, with a subtle shift in our food spending habits, we can make a $900 million to $1.5 billion economic impact on Indiana in one year."