That’s where local governments can come in. Small business owners, farmers, distributors, restaurateurs, and eaters develop innovative strategies to strengthen their respective segments of the local food chain, and municipalities can support this process by creating links down the line and increasing opportunities for food system purveyors to work together.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) has developed a comprehensive regional plan that includes resources and tools for local governments to support local food. Hot on the heels of the plan’s adoption, CMAP is eager to make the case that a strong local food system benefits all residents in the seven-county area, particularly from an economic perspective. They are currently in the process of helping governments develop food system-friendly codes and ordinances in order to enable more momentum in the public sector.

CMAP’s work with local governments extends well beyond changes to county code. In 2010, the agency received a $4.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which allowed CMAP to launch its Local Technical Assistance program. The program pairs government agencies with professional planners who help guide the implementation of the regional plan, free of charge.

Jason Navota, one of CMAP’s principal planners, explains how the LTA program asks municipalities to consider, “What might stand in the way of a robust local food system?” From there, LTA program staff can help identify, then overcome, the unique roadblocks different areas face. For example, in Lake County, planners first attempted to find regulatory barriers that might prevent food system innovation like urban agriculture or community gardening from taking root. Surprisingly, Navota notes, “regulations aren’t much of a barrier,” underscoring that significant difficulties arise elsewhere.

“The largest barrier is access to land—not just land in general, but land that has the right characteristics and infrastructure for local food operation,” Navota emphasizes. Without running water, on-site electricity, and in some cases on-site housing, growers often run a slim chance of harvesting a reliable crop on private lands. In well-developed Lake County, Navota adds, “land prices are prohibitively high,” a further roadblock to supporting urban food production. Confronted with this reality, CMAP’s planners worked with Lake County to identify public lands with the potential for food production, a solution that could provide tenant farmers with the opportunity to grow produce without breaking the bank.

Partnerships like the one in Lake County aim to target the root issue underlying myriad problems in the food system, from access to markets to institutional purchasing practices. “The infrastructure system for getting [local food products] to those who want them is not strong enough,” Navota stresses. Even with growing support for and interest in local foods, ideological commitment alone cannot pave the road from farm to plate. Because local governments have the capacity to support the development of food system infrastructure, such as food hubs, storage facilities, farm incubators, or farmers markets, through long-term planning and policy efforts, it’s crucial that they get on board.

Perhaps one silver lining of the recession is that it might make some local governments more amenable to smart, innovative food system planning by forcing them to take a step back and evaluate their previous efforts. Local development means increased revenues, something that municipalities across the country are always vying for, particularly in tough economic times, and champions of local food have often underscored its potential to funnel resources back into local communities. “When you go to a county board and you talk to them about the billion dollars of potential that exist in our region if we just decided to grow our own food and use our own businesses to process, distribute, and sell that food,” Navota explains, ”you see their eyes light up.”

He underscores that while counties and other local governments are starting to see the potential of investing in local food, the planning process demands and depends on long-range thinking that can be difficult to pitch. “I don’t want to oversell the potential [of local food] to recover local government budgets, because the potential is fairly modest but it is very real.” Given that land already exists in places like Lake County, and farmland in particular, “it’s to [counties’] advantage to use it to generate additional economic activity.”

As it continues to develop, the food movement is unlikely to suffer from a lack of a good ideas or persistent effort on the part of its supporters to develop grassroots solutions to community problems. What the movement needs now is connections, both between the many issues it seeks to encompass and between individuals and organizations placed at different points on the food chain. Developing a comprehensive, consistent infrastructure requires long-term, innovative planning from those who have the power and skills to implement it. As CMAP shows, that means lining up the authority and resources of local governments with the skills and expertise of planning experts so that the movement can come of age.

Residents of South Carolina’s Lowcountry know that the area’s vibrant culture and scenic beauty constitute something special, something that represents more than the group of counties contained within its geographic perimeter.

Jamee Haley, executive director of Lowcountry Local First (LLF), recognizes that the unique character of the state’s southernmost region depends as much on the health of the economy as it does on the creative pursuits and hard work of the people who live there. Whether in the world of agriculture or business, she works to inspire those who share her appreciation for and dedication to their local communities to make a simple decision: “Choose the Lowcountry.”

From this request stem the organizations two primary initiatives, Eat Local and Buy Local. In Haley’s words, both sides of LLF “are about local economic development and the preservation of people and place.” This approach acknowledges the common links between small-scale business and agriculture, and works to support these two aspects of the Lowcountry’s economy as they exist in concert with one another. Haley noted that it’s often easier to encourage Lowcountry residents to eat locally because of the “immediate satisfaction” of diving into a plate full of fresh, high-quality local produce, meats, and seafood, but that buying from local businesses shares the same underlying principles as supporting local agriculture.

“There’s less environmental impact, it brings more money back into the local community, it gives you a better experience. [These businesses] are employing local people [and] giving back to non-profits,” Haley underscored.

LLF sees its primary role as an advocate for Lowcountry businesses and farmers, and this aim informs the organization’s myriad programs to promote development and collaboration. In the five years since the organization’s founding, LLF has provided a range of resources to businesses, farmers, and community members that includes workshops with local business experts, farm tours, weekly networking opportunities, and lists of area CSAs, farmers markets, and meat or seafood shares.

The organization’s emphasis on collaboration stems from the belief that creating and sustaining a dynamic local economy requires that businesses and farmers themselves invest in other local operations. By encouraging reciprocity and engagement, Haley noted that the LLF gives the Lowcountry’s business and agriculture communities “opportunities to connect with each other [in order] to build those relationships that…will help make them succeed.”

Though a relative newcomer to the world of local, sustainable agriculture and economic development, LLF has already established itself as an organization that is both eager to learn and willing to innovate. Still, one of the primary challenges for the young organization has been catering to the needs of its broad membership, which draws in anyone from accountants to coffee roasters to farmers. Navigating the demands from 500 diverse members can be difficult, and Haley strives to address common issues without diluting the organization’s efficacy.

“It’s easy for me to identify need, but sometimes I have to hold myself back and say, ‘This needs to be done, but maybe not by us or maybe not right now,’” Haley noted. With its focus on strong partnerships with others in the business and agriculture communities, LLF aims to maintain its role as a community advocate while simultaneously gaining opportunities to learn, grow, and share information. Haley added, “I see our role being a catalyst for making [local economic development] happen [by acting] as a consultant for other communities who want to have an Eat Local First or Buy Local First program.”

For example, LLF’s collaboration with the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association has provided Haley and her colleagues with “an opportunity to tap into their expertise” as well as to spread key insights from one of LLF’s biggest triumphs, its farmer mentoring program. The mentoring initiative arose as a crucial first step to address the challenges associated with South Carolina’s aging farmer population, and has connected 70 apprentices with mentor-farmers to hone their skills in business management and sustainable agriculture.

The next phase in LLF’s broader aim to support new and emerging farmers is the development of South Carolina’s first farm incubator program, an initiative that will take root this fall. After a year of searching the Lowcountry for a suitable location to host the program, LLF turned to long-time supporter Andrea Limehouse, who agreed to lease 10 of her 60 acres of farmland to the organization for one dollar per year (yes, one dollar).

Thanks to her generosity, six new farmers will be able to manage and cultivate 1-2 acres of that land for up to three years, using shared equipment and a tractor donated by Steen Enterprises. A local architect has offered to design a communal packing shed to comply with GAP standards, and LLF is currently in the process of securing funding to bring those plans to light.

Additionally, one of LLF’s mentor-farmers will be available to guide these growers as they confront the challenges associated with their new profession. In the long-term, the organization aims to match these farmers with land opportunities as they transition away from LLF’s shared growing site. Haley hopes that by giving new farmers a solid foundation during the crucial first years of their operations, LLF will be able to “help them find those opportunities with the advantage of having built up their market for the past three years.”

While LLF’s success over the past five years has been encouraging, Haley still noted that the relative inertia of government authorities to embrace policies that support local agriculture and businesses is a considerable roadblock to progress. “There’s always the fear that the whole local food thing is a trend, and we want to make sure that people understand that we can’t afford for that to be a trend, that it’s got to be a way of life,” Haley stressed. In a political climate where the government’s idea of agriculture “is not always the same” as LLF’s, Haley argued that much of the organization’s work necessarily involves demonstrating the economic benefits of local agriculture.

As Haley championed the role of local agriculture and entrepreneurship in fostering strong, sustainable economies, she also underscored the cultural significance of these activities. Simply, she pointed out that “these businesses and farmers are a critical component…of what makes this place special.”

As our ailing agricultural landscape continues to face pressure from man and nature alike, the learning curve to figure out how to take care of the country’s farmland is steep. For the youngest generation of farmers, many of whom are stepping foot in the field for the first time, the risks of the agriculture industry, from drought to debt, can easily spell failure for their emerging operations.

Georgia Organics, a non-profit with over 1,200 community members dedicated to promoting sustainable agricultural practices in the state, offers a wide array of services to support the often-tumultuous transition to farm life. The organization’s farmer-to-farmer mentoring program provides new and emerging farmers with the opportunity to learn how to tackle uncertainty and challenges from the people who understand the business best–other farmers. By providing a resource that allows information to flow from one generation of farmers to the next, Georgia Organics helps newer farmers grow while letting older farmers give back.

Brennan Washington, a former IT employee turned owner and operator of Phoenix Gardens, LLC, is a graduate of the program whose involvement has come full circle—he is now in his second year of mentoring and looks forward to supporting more young farmers in the future.

As a mentee, Washington worked with Daniel Parson, winner of the 2009 Georgia Organics Land Stewardship Award and the go-to guy for all things agriculture. “We had a good relationship,” Washington said. “I could ask him anything I wanted.” It was Parson’s guidance that helped Washington and his wife, Gwendolyn, solve some of the most pressing problems on their small urban farm—developing a schedule for crop rotation and planting in raised beds.

Now a mentor, Washington strives to provide the same level of open communication and guidance to his mentees, a process that requires talking as much about mistakes as about triumphs. “Anybody can crow about their successes,” he noted. “But the more important thing is to really share your failures and to help your mentee avoid them.” This transparency creates a strong sense of trust, and Washington reminds his mentees that nothing about his operation is off the table for discussion.

For Washington and his wife, the mistake that turned the tide for their operation was failing to look at farming as a business. Both had off-farm jobs that provided enough income to cover some of their early missteps, but once they decided to take on farming as a full-time profession, they quickly realized how much of their costs they hadn’t truly taken into account. Faced with the reality of issues like labor, property management, and health insurance, Washington and his wife had to play catch up to forge a financially viable business.

With the help of programs like Georgia Organics, who sent Washington to the National Small Farm Conference, as well as Southern University’s Small Farmer Agricultural Leadership Institute, Washington was able to sharpen his skills as both a farmer and an entrepreneur. Having attended multiple farm tours and training sessions, Washington offers this advice to anyone interested in entering the field: “Don’t treat it as a hobby.”

Washington’s influence as a mentor extends beyond the wealth of business and farming knowledge he has gained through his experience. One of the biggest benefits of Georgia Organics’ mentoring program is that it allows farmers to communicate the intangibles to one another, guiding newer growers through those crucial emotional phases that can make or break an operation. When his mentee was on the verge of giving up on farming altogether, Washington recalled that “it was all stuff that my wife and I went through and we were able to just sort through it.” Washington’s holistic approach to mentoring stems from his desire to serve the community that supported him during his transitional phase: “If Georgia Organics didn’t give to me, I don’t know where I’d be. So I always try to give back.”

Looking to the future of agriculture, Washington hopes that the newest generation of farmers has access to more programs like those sponsored through Georgia Organics, the Small Farmer Agricultural Leadership Institute, and USDA-sponsored Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grants. He notes that despite a growing interest among young people to take on farming full-time, there is still a considerable lack of infrastructure to support the transition to such a risky enterprise.

For example, while cost share programs such as those provided through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) directly aim to support sustainable farmers, especially socially disadvantaged farmers such as women and people of color, these new and emerging growers often don’t have the start-up capital to take advantage of cost shares in the first place. Washington added that even though more information is available to farmers now than ever before, there is still a need for structured programs that train people on where to look for grants and cost shares and how to apply for them. Momentum is growing in the Southeast to develop such infrastructure, but Washington notes that the region is still lagging behind places like California and the Pacific Northwest in creating a solid foundation for future farming generations.

Georgia Organics remains a promising model for agricultural and community development. Their work fosters the sense of engagement and reciprocity that Brennan Washington champions. By focusing on education and outreach for everyone from farmers to eaters, schools to gardeners, the organization helps forge connections between people committed to supporting local foods.

Photo credit to Cheryl Ferrygood of Southern University.

Ben Taylor, son of legends James Taylor and Carly Simon, has roots as deep in the soil as he does in music, and he uses the stage as a way to spread awareness about local agriculture. He is an avid supporter of the Island Grown Initiative, a multi-faceted project based in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts that sponsors its own farm-to-school program, organizes a cadre of volunteer gleaners to harvest crops that would otherwise go to waste, educates beekeepers, and provides processing facilities for local poultry farmers.

Having heard about the program from his cousin Noli Taylor, Island Grown Schools’ Program Coordinator, Ben noted that the organization “tickled his fancy” for promoting a strong sense of connectedness within the community to the place they call home. Civil Eats recently spoke to Ben about his involvement in good food issues.

As a musician, how did you become involved with issues regarding food and agriculture?

Before I wanted to be a musician, I was looking for anything else that I could do. I’d been on a lot of wilderness excursions and I loved being in nature. When I first moved out of my home as a teenager, I went to New Mexico and worked on an organic farm out on San Juan Pueblo and that was just really cool. The guy that I worked for was this incredible natural mystic and I developed a profound respect [for him] and a different idea of what it meant to be a gardener.

What trajectory has your involvement taken since then?

What it inspired in me was a call to action socially and politically, so I try to help generate awareness when I find people in different locales doing great things and setting good examples. There’s a company called Island Grown Initiative which I raise money for and with which I work, and they run organic gardens and greenhouses and schools on island [in Martha's Vineyard] where I’ve lived for over a decade. For the kids, the program is part of their education and they [use it to] grow food for the cafeteria. That’s really an incredible project. I think that where I can be the most helpful is in using my music to generate awareness for good. The reason I feel so strongly about it is mostly because I’m fond of nutrition and I think that the way that we generally see it is without consideration of the spirit. I believe that there’s a huge spiritual component to nutrition and I think that’s one of the biggest points that we’re missing in terms of the disconnection from our hunger.

What are the primary issues you focus on?

Local autonomy, primarily in agriculture because I like to grow food and I like farmers. But in every way, I want to fight for people to have independent businesses and communities, to rely less upon outsourcing in general. In some ways, I feel like it doesn’t make that much sense preaching to people like me because we get it. As much as I love local businesses and am against multi-national globalization, I’m also really grateful to companies like Walmart because they’ve actually introduced the concept of “organic” to way more people than could have been reached as quickly by conventional, independent grassroots means. The actual problem and solution are both broader than I could wrap my head around, and there’s always give and take, good and bad in anything. That’s why I like to focus on the microcosmic level as much as I can.

What are your goals for your work?

Primarily, I want to make a difference in music education. I want to use the skills I’ve spent a lifetime developing first to inspire kids to want to be musicians and second, to help schools and states build extracurricular music programs. That’s my primary goal in life. But in the meantime, I want to help the people in my community have a better quality of life. One of the things that I think is the most important in that is healthy food and proper nutrition. On a complete level, not just on a physical level but on a spiritual level where you understand where your food is coming from. That’s so important that, at least the people in my community, I don’t think we can afford to pay whatever the 75 or 80 percent of our food that goes into the transportation of it. We can’t afford the compromise in the quality of the food that happens.

What other projects does the IGI run?

They do an island gleaning program. A lot of the farmers on the island don’t have enough people to do their harvesting for them. There’s a lot of produce that grows on different people’s land [that doesn't get harvested]. So the Island Grown Initiative started this process where local gardeners and farmers sign up to tell which days are going to be optimal for harvest. A couple of days a week, kids from the [Island Grown School] and a bunch of volunteers from the community get together and go help those people with the harvesting and they bring it back to the schools or other community organizations. It’s a great idea because when people are evaluating how much food there realistically is in the community, they don’t take that proportion of it into consideration.

What groups, projects, or individuals inspire you in the work that you do?

I like urban community garden projects. Really anything that brings people together around agriculture. I think that ideas people have about farming in general is outdated and antiquated and not cool. Where I live, the farmers and people who grow food are the coolest people around because they’re actually providing for the rest of the community. I may want to start an organization to promote the sexiness of gardening [and farming]. That’s the place where I’ve been working the hardest in my community. Sometimes I’ll go to towns where it will work out well that I can cross-promote my music and a local charity, but in that case I don’t have the opportunity to get as involved with those organizations and how they work specifically.

Who is in your community?

Almost all of my family lives on the same little island that I do. All my cousins and their kids, my sister and her husband and their kids, aunts and uncles. Then we’ve a lot of gardeners, landscapers, and people in the construction business. I think generally speaking, because of the fact it’s becoming more lucrative and people are getting more conscious about it, most of those industries on Martha’s Vineyard where I live are fairly green. They’re fairly conscious about what a good opportunity it is for them to do business.

Do you see your influence extending beyond Martha’s Vineyard, given that you travel a lot as part of your career?

Of course. I don’t get on stage to preach to people about what they eat. Most of what you teach, you teach by example. In the course of traveling across the country, I have so many conversations with people and I think that I can at least inspire some thought, if not change. As I travel more, I try to seek out a local co-op or business where I can support people growing transitional produce, people who are trying to make the switch to organic rather than people who have been doing it for years and years. Sometimes that’s just preaching to the choir.

Since you started your involvement in food and agriculture issues, what has changed, for better or worse?

Unfortunately, agribusiness has never been bigger and as a result of the way plants cross-pollinate, there’s not enough non-GMO crops out there. But when you look and take Temple Grandin, for example, who designed livestock-processing facilities that process half the cattle in the United States. Her whole idea was that she wanted to design a slaughterhouse where cows were calm at the end of the line. Thinking about how many cattle are slaughtered each day, that kind of design unburdens us from the weight of a lot of pain. I think she’s made as much of a difference as anybody, and that’s change for the better.

What is biggest obstacle in changing the way we grow and eat our food?

I think the biggest obstacles are going to be greed and laziness. Agribusiness being willing to sacrifice quantity for quality. There is enough land to grow enough food for all the folks. That’s all there is to it, but it’s obviously a lot more complicated.

What gives you hope?

Different trends about the way that the world is changing. The idea that kids in my own community are growing the food in their school. Corn is still a bummer. I’m still sad about corn. And really, I think the legalization and medicalization of marijuana is an optimistic trend because it’s potentially one of the biggest cash crops that the government has been neglecting for a long time.

For you, what does the ideal food system look like?

I think the best thing is if you go out and you notice that a tree has a ripe avocado on it, you go over and knock a few down, put balsamic and olive oil on it, and offer it to your mother’s brother.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Papaya, avocado, salt, pepper, red onion, olive oil, and lime juice.

Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of you. For many individuals and institutions, the problem with switching to local food purchases isn’t that people are unwilling or unenthusiastic, it’s that many just don’t know where to look. With our daily lives moving at breakneck speed amidst a flurry of tweets, emails, and texts, we often find ourselves paying more attention to the screens in front of us than the world in which we live. Organizations around the country are taking advantage of this period of technological innovation by developing virtual tools to help open our eyes to the bounty of our local food systems.

One such organization is Ecotrust based in Portland, Ore. Two years ago, they launched FoodHub, a social networking tool that revitalizes regional agriculture by helping farmers and buyers find one another online, often in a matter of minutes. Farmers provide comprehensive profiles that lay out the specifics of their operations, such as organic status, size, growing season, and available products, allowing buyers to search the site for a suitable match. Buyers can even broadcast the need for a particular crop, allowing producers to respond to the demand online.

This increased transparency and ease of use have been a tremendous boon to Ecotrust’s Farm to School initiative, facilitating links between regional food producers and schools who otherwise might not have been able to connect. Stacey Sobell, Ecotrust’s Farm to School Manager, notes that FoodHub has dramatically influenced her work in getting more local foods into school cafeterias. Because schools often do not have the time or resources to find these farmers, FoodHub does most of the legwork for them.

Over 125 school districts in Oregon and Washington are registered with FoodHub, representing approximately 1,400 schools serving children from kindergarten all the way through high school. There are even 24 pre-kindergarten programs that are members of the site. Taken together, these institutions serve over 670,000 children in the Pacific Northwest. While specific data tracking how much local food makes it to cafeteria trays remains uncollected, Sobell noted that FoodHub has brought Ecotrust’s Farm to School program in contact with far more school districts than ever before.

“Just by seeing who signs up with FoodHub allows us to get a picture of who’s interested in buying local,” Sobell said, and that information helps her identify new districts to whom she can reach out and offer support.

The results of these connections have been illuminating for many school service staff. Sobell remarked that after conducting quick searches on FoodHub, several schools and districts are often shocked by the number of farmers that grow crops just down the street from them. As Diane Hyndman from the Wahluke School District attested, FoodHub “brings the farmers’ market right into my office,” making the process of finding connections simple. What might start as a quick online message between a school and a farmer can grow into a partnership that fills more children’s bellies with locally produced food.

Many farmers on FoodHub run small-scale operations, a reality that often makes connecting with large-scale buyers like schools more difficult. Traditional food hubs address this problem by taking on the aggregation, marketing, and distribution of products from multiple farmers. Doing so allows these organizations to meet demands from large-scale buyers while allowing smaller agricultural operations to remain viable. Through FoodHub, this process happens virtually. The site’s extensive directory of regional producers and buyers (FoodHub boasts just under 3,700 members) and online marketplace help “organize the local market and makes the parties transparent to each other so that they can do business directly,” notes Director Amanda Oborne.

Direct communication makes it possible for smaller farms to meet hefty demands, as when growers on FoodHub answered a request from Portland Public Schools (PPS) for 200 pounds of radishes for one of the district’s Harvest of the Month offerings. The program promotes awareness and consumption of healthy foods in schools by featuring a unique crop in its cafeterias each month. Gitta Grether-Sweeney, Nutrition Services Director for PPS, noted that she “got responses from farmers right in [her] district” after she posted the call for radishes on FoodHub’s online Marketplace. The site allowed her to take advantage of the short supply chain between local farmers and the schools she serves, adding that produce “doesn’t get any fresher than that.”

By letting users see who and what is out there, FoodHub opens up an array of possible connections across the Pacific Northwest’s regional food system. Virtual tools like FoodHub are important to help boost the success of local farmers and to provide additional channels for marketing and distribution. Furthermore, without being tied to specific infrastructure, FoodHub opens up the possibility for adaption across regions, potentially leading to further innovation.

Photo credit to Scott Trimble.

Correction: The original release of this article indicated that approximately 1,600 schools serving over 820,000 children were registered using FoodHub. The updated numbers have removed figures from accounts that are not currently active on the site. ]]> http://civileats.com/2012/06/28/foodhub-uses-online-social-networking-to-get-farm-fresh-food-to-school-cafeterias/feed/ 2