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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spends plenty of time touring the five boroughs. But it's not often she heads into the country to visit a farm.

Quinn recently traveled upstate to Red Hook, New York on her mission to revolutionize the way New Yorkers get their food. Nestor Tello's small farm there serves as an example of the type of business Quinn would like to see serve more people in the city.

"Part of the answer of getting more good food out to New York City is finding ways to support these farmers, but also to engage these farmers in the food that New York City is a part of," Quinn said.

As part of Quinn's so-called Foodworks Initiative, the Council Speaker plans to unveil legislation that would require city agencies to track how much locally-grown food they buy for prisons, senior centers and schools, to name a few.

"It's good to buy high-quality food but it's better to buy high quality food from New York State because then you're not destroying the environment driving it here thousands of miles," Quinn said.

Mandating the city purchase locally-grown food might be legally difficult to accomplish, but Quinn believes her legislation could get to that goal once city agencies discover how much food comes from out of state and learn what they can buy locally.

Back in Red Hook, Nestor Tello's farm is home to thousands of chickens, as well as vegetables normally grown in South America.

Nester's hens lay about 2,000 eggs a day. He then puts them in crates and brings them to the city where he sells them at eight green markets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

But his products are still only purchased by a small percentage of the population. Part of what is holding back the local food movement is price. Currently, he sells a dozen eggs for $4, about 30 percent more than what a dozen eggs cost in a Manhattan supermarket.

"It's great to help local farmers, but we want to be careful not to do that on the backs of taxpayers, or low income families and others who really need to stretch their food dollar," said NYU Professor Joseph Foudy.

Quinn believes that if the demand for local food increases along with the supply, the price will eventually come down and local food will become more than a greenmarket treat.