Local food system stakeholders are confronted with challenges when attempting to ascertain the economic impacts of food system investments. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service commissioned a team of economists to develop a resource to provide support to stakeholders interested in understanding the economic impacts of local food system efforts. In this article, we explain the process of developing The Economics of Local Food Systems: A Toolkit to Guide Community Discussions, Assessments and Choices (a resource known as the Toolkit), and we describe the Toolkit contents, with the goal of encouraging Extension educators, community development professionals, and other stakeholders to conduct more rigorous evaluations of local food system initiatives.