Baltimore: A Healthy Food Access Case Study
Thursday, May 16
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Baltimore offers an important example of a city that has successfully implemented an inter-governmental initiative to increase access to healthy and affordable foods in underserved neighborhoods.
This webinar offers an in-depth exploration of Baltimore’s healthy food retail programs and accomplishments including its virtual supermarket program, the financing of two recent healthy food markets, and a just released study mapping food quality in Baltimore food markets.
Presenters Include:
- Laura Fox, Director, Baltimore Office of Chronic Disease Prevention
- Amanda Behren’s, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future Maryland – Food System Mapping Project
- Dana Johnson, Market Leader Baltimore, The Reinvestment Fund
- Patricia Smith, Senior Policy Advisory, The Reinvestment Fund
Starting a Food Hub: Successful Hubs Share Their Stories
Thursday, May 16, 3:30 – 4:45pm ET
Free! Register Now
But how do you start a food hub?
This webinar brings together the stories of the formation and first year of three different, successful food hubs. Our presenters are all founders of their hubs. They will share some of the best decisions they made … and some of the worst. What types of contacts did they feel really helped their business to thrive? How much money did they need, and how did they get it? Why did they choose their incorporation status? And more…
Panelists:
- Sandi Kronick – Eastern Carolina Organics
- Chris Hartman – Good Food Collective-Head Water Foods, Inc
- Jim Crawford – Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative
Economic analysis of local and regional food systems: Taking stock and looking ahead
The Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems and the Union of Concerned Scientists cordially invite you to a public webinar
Monday, May 20th – from 3:00 to 4:30 pm EST
Brief Summary – To address the current state and future direction of economic analysis with regard to local and regional food systems, Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems and the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Food & Environment Program convened a meeting of a group of economists and local food researchers on January 31 and February 1, 2013. This webinar will provide a brief synopsis of the meeting outcomes, with a focus on questions one should consider when conducting or commissioning a study on the economic impacts of local and regional food systems. There will be adequate opportunity for participants to weigh in with comments and questions to continue to inform the discussion on future economic impact studies of local and regional food commerce.
To get on the webinar, go to: https://connect.msu.edu/
The webinar will be recorded for those who are not able to participate on May 20th. For additional information please contact:
Rich Pirog – Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems –rspirog@msu.edu
Jeff O’Hara – Union of Concerned Scientists – johara@ucsusa.org
Resources to Create or Expand Healthy Food Retail: Public and Private Grant and Loan Programs
Thursday, May 30
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern
This webinar will provide an overview of the “Find Money” section of the Healthy Food Retail Portal and provide examples of specific federal, state, and local resources that can be tapped to create or expand healthy food retail opportunities in underserved communities.
Presenters Include:
- Pamela Porter, Executive Vice President, Strategic Consulting, Opportunity Finance Network
- Christine Fry, Senior Policy Analyst and Program Director, ChangeLab Solutions
- Khanh Nguyen, Portfolio Director – Healthy Living, The Colorado Health Foundation
- Patricia Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, The Reinvestment Fund
Growing Food Connections
Building the capacity of local and regional governments to improve community food systems to benefit small and mid-sized farmers and underserved community residents.
The overarching goal of this project is to enhance food security while ensuring sustainable and economically viable agriculture and food production. This requires, in part, removing public policy barriers and deploying innovative public policy tools.
Growing Food Connections is a diverse partnership of researchers, planning practitioners, and food systems stakeholders from across the United States. The partnership includes eight core groups, all of whom will play a role in the research, practice, and educational areas of the GFC initiative.
** NEW** Micro-Dairy Case Study Video
On April 4, at the OMAF and MRA- U of G Partnership Knowledge Exchange Day 2013: The KTT Toolbox, we took part in a workshop that discussed the processes involved in gathering and responding to user feedback, and the positive changes in the digital toolkit that resulted.
At the same event, Jordan Vander Klok won the Student Video Contest with his video “Building Regional Food Hubs in Ontario: A Micro-Dairy Case Study” [YouTube] – part of a series of video case studies currently being conducted by Nourishing Ontario.
Congratulations, Jordan!!
Models and Best Practices Report
The release of the report “Models and Best Practices for Building Sustainable Food Systems in Ontario and Beyond” has been featured by the Universities of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier, and picked up by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
… and elsewhere on the net:
Community Meeting on Local Food System
Are you interested in a local food system in Huron County?
Please attend our community meeting to learn more and share your ideas!
Where – Stanley Community Centre just west of Varna
When – Wednesday May 8th from 6pm to 9pm
Refreshments available – doors open at 5:30
Please call or email to register:
Janice Dunbar 519.482.3416 ext.2255
jdunbar@huroncounty.ca
What we hope to achieve:
- Create unified/common understanding of a sustainable food system in Huron
- Bring learning from other rural areas engaged in sustainable food system efforts
- Build momentum and leadership for a sustainable food system in Huron County
Some questions we hope to answer:
- What does the system look like?
- What are the missing pieces?
- Who are the key players in the system?
- Where are you? How do you fit within the food system?
Fortnightly Feast – vol. 7
Community Engagement: Pedagogy, Partnership, Practices
26th Annual Teaching and Learning Innovations Conference
Jointly sponsored by the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences and the Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Connie Nelson, Lakehead University
“Service Learning and Democratizing Knowledge”
In the past month we’ve seen a huge revival in the use of the term ‘sustainable’ in the foodosphere (that’s the ‘blogosphere’ as it relates to food) – as I tried to capture in the last Feast (vol. 6.2). Whether talking about farm insurance, food marketing, food systems, food justice, food hubs, food regulation, the future of farming, or the future of food, it’s gotta be ‘sustainable’ (again). Here is a small (but important) sample:
http://fox6now.com/2013/04/27/
http://learn.uvm.edu/
http://www.farms.com/
The Small-Minded, Small Farm Conundrum
Our ideas are not small in any way, but we end up time and time again arguing our case primarily on the basis of size. … But size alone seems not to be the primary driver of risk. Rather, such factors as time, distance and system complexity are the most immediate keys to controlling risk, and that would make local and regional food systems a critical part of any effective national food safety strategy. Read more…
Local and Regional Food System Marketing Program Opens Up New Round of FundingThe USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has announced a request for applications for its latest round of funding for the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP). Two previous priority categories remain for the 2013 round of grants:
- Creating wealth in rural communities through the development of local and regional food systems and value-added agriculture; and
- Developing direct marketing opportunities for producers, or producer groups.
Greenbelt Fund Green Papers – Volume 6 – People: Attitudes and Beliefs
When making changes to the food purchasing process, the challenge public institutions face is that they tend to involve a long list of staff members that play a role in this process… Any one person on this long line of those directly and indirectly affected can stymie institutional change. It is therefore of utmost importance that relevant staff is engaged when initiating change. Read more…
Locavesting is a call to rethink the way we invest, so that we support the small businesses that create jobs and healthy, resilient communities. Read more…
… and finally, regular Feast readers will have been struck by the number of articles on the investment in infrastructure happening at a a state level in both Michigan and New York. Here’s more:
What is a food hub? Part 3: Michigan Hubs
The Michigan Food Hub Learning and Innovation Network facilitates:
- increased learning, innovation, and profitability for participating food hubs
- increased access to food hub financial and technical assistance, research, and education
- increased business-to-business collaboration across food hubs.
State approves $2.5 million for Madison County ‘food hub’
The grants from Empire State Development Corp. will help Growing Upstate Food Hub LLC, a consortium of farm businesses, build the $4.2 million shared-use facility in Canastota. Read more…
New Report Release from Nourishing Ontario
Research report shows how sustainable food systems strengthen the health of local communities
WATERLOO – A new report by Ontario researchers documents how farmers’ markets, co-ops and other sustainable food systems strengthen the economic, environmental and social health of local communities.
After extensive consultation with the Ontario food community, the report — called Models and Best Practices for Building Sustainable Food Systems in Ontario and Beyond — will be made available to the public today through the Nourishing Ontario website: http://nourishingontario.ca/models-and-best-practices/
Farm to Fork
Guest blog:
To most of us, $1500 is a lot of money. Perhaps it represents an all-inclusive vacation, a new laptop, much needed car repairs, or a portion of tuition. Whatever it represents, if $1500 were placed on the table in front of us, it’s unlikely that any one of us would simply pick it up and throw it in the garbage.
And yet thanks to food waste, throwing away large sums of money is what the average Canadian household does. Think about that. Every month, your household tosses about $125 worth of food into the garbage.
What makes this number all the more concerning is that 850 thousand Canadians still need to visit some form of food security service every month. That’s about 1 in 40 Canadians – possibly someone in your neighbourhood.
Obviously there is a disconnect. How can we have so much that we’re willing to throw $125 away every month, while at the same time people in our neighbourhoods struggle to put together a nutritious meal for their family?
Last year, Dr. Daniel Gillis[1] and Danny Williamson[2] partnered with Linda Hawkins[3], the Guelph Wellington Food Access Working Group, and the Guelph Food Round Table, to explore the disconnect between abundance and need. It quickly became obvious that the issue wasn’t due to a lack of willingness to help, it was a lack of communication; donors were unaware of what they could donate, when they could donate, or where they could donate.
Dr. Daniel Gillis, PhD Statistics, Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science, University of Guelph, Co-founder of the Farm To Fork project
To address this issue, Gillis and Williamson founded the Farm To Fork project. The goal – increase the quality and quantity of donations by connecting donors directly with the needs of the emergency food service providers. In September, they presented the concept to Gillis’ third year School of Computer Science class at the University of Guelph. Over the course of the fall semester, 30 passionate undergraduate students moved the project from idea to working prototype.
Some of the 30 designers of the Farm To Fork website
Since January, Lee-Jay Cluskey-Belanger, and Benjamin Katznelson – members of the original Farm To Fork class – have been working to finalize the prototype. The system will allow any emergency food provider the ability to create a grocery list of needs, including fresh produce, non-perishable, or non-food items. Donors will be able to log into the system, identify a nearby pantry (for example), browse their grocery list, and select which items they’d be willing to donate. The system will also send an email reminder on the day the donor has identified as their typical grocery day.
But before the Farm To Fork solution can be launched, it has to be beta tested to ensure that it functions properly. This means hiring several students from the original Farm To Fork class. To cover the expenses associated with beta testing, the Farm To Fork team is trying to raise $15000 through the Microryza crowdfunding platform. The campaign ends May 19th. If you want to help support the Farm To Fork project, please consider donating (https://www.microryza.com/projects/farm-to-fork).
For more information, follow Farm To Fork on Twitter (@Farm_2_Fork), like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/FarmToForkGuelph), of follow our blog (http://farmtoforkguelph.wordpress.com/).
[1] Assistant Professor and Statistician, co-founder of the Farm To Fork Project, School of Computer Science, University of Guelph.
[2] Consultant, and co-founder of the Farm To Fork Project.
[3] Director of the Institute for Community Engaged Scholarship, University of Guelph
Ecological Farmers of Ontario / West End Food Co-op
Developing the Producer and Retailer/Distributor Relationship
A Panel Discussion
Saturday, April 27th 2013
Location: The West End Food Coop, 1229 Queen St W Toronto
Are you interested in finding out more about selling your farm products to a retailer/food box/food coop/distributor?
The EFAO and West End Food Coop are offering a panel discussion highlighting local growers and buyers sharing their experiences as well as buyer expectations for producers.
The panel includes:
Mama Earth Organics – Emmalea Davis
Kind Organics – Tamas Dombi
Vibrant Farms – Melissa Baer
West End Food Coop – Ayal Diner
Arrive at 1:00pm and panel to start at 1:30pm
Break and refreshments
Finish time 5:00pm
This event is for farmers who operate small to medium sized farm and would like to find out more about how their farm could start selling to retail/distributor/food box/food coop.
Please contact Karen Maitland to register at info@efao.ca or phone at 519-822-8606
Crowdsourcing Sustainable Social Ventures to Link Rural and Urban Well-being
BEEB, Hives and Local Networks of Empowerment
We believe that to tackle the global issue of food insecurity in a sustainable way it is vital to connect rural and urban communities on low incomes. BEEB is essentially a model of information and organisation that links rural and urban well-being. The two communities escape food insecurity together. Read more…
BEEB connects a cooperative of small-holder farmers directly with the slum dwellers using two simple parts: basic cold storage facilities and a mobile phone order and payment system.
Vote for BEEB online! Only 19 days left…
Hult Prize Global On-line Competition
The theme of the 2013 Hult Prize is global food security and will focus on how to get safe, sufficient, affordable and easily accessible food to the 200 million people who live in urban slums – a challenge personally selected by former US President Clinton. Student teams will be charged with developing a sustainable social venture that can accomplish the objective by 2018. View all of the videos for the online competition on the Hult Prize Facebook site.