conversations and organized meetings. We talked about the trends and challenges...We realized as a group we have the knowledge to figure out what we need and how to do it," he said. Though Schell said the research was at times depressing because he was finding soil wasn't used for the best crops or livestock drink more water than we receive in certain areas, he said anyone he talked to still envisioned a way of making a more sustainable system. One of the solutions, as outlined in the culmination of his 18 months of research are food clusters. "You try to grow and consume within your own cluster," Schell explained, adding that for vegetables we should trade beef and cheese to Elgin county producers. By creating food clusters, Schell hopes to cut into the $18 billion worth of food that is imported into the country each year and by doing that, Shell said 150,000 to 300,000 jobs could be created. "We are trying to reduce the amount of energy it takes to deliver a calorie of food," he said. "We love to buy local, but the logistics are a nightmare...We can't count on consistency of quality or quantity, so we have to go somewhere else."