November 2009

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Good food in a variety of places: check out this month's Good Food News Review

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Now Available: Good Food Indicators

A common language is needed for people from different domains to work together and measure progress toward a goal. That's the purpose of the Wallace Center's Sustainable Food Indicators Project, which recently released a set of metrics designed to help all involved in transforming food markets determine what good food is and whether the market is providing it.

Farmers and farm workers, distributors, neighborhood groups, grant makers, and other groups are involved in the business of building food markets that deliver more economic, environmental, and social benefits. The new Sustainable Food Indicators provide a common language by clarifying and quantifying those benefits. The indicators also provide a base for monitoring progress over time through the use of reliable, easily obtainable data.

National in scope, the indicators come in four categories that parallel the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's definition of good food as healthy, green, fair, affordable. The research also includes discussion of "hot spots," or areas of particular concern, and "notable facts," with more detail on progress and promising innovations.

Find more information and a copy of the Sustainable Indicators charts at www.wallacecenter.org.

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Farm to School Network Moving Purchasing, Policy

Farm to School activity is strong and growing in the United States. Farm to School is also driving a good portion of the national work among farms, distributors, and others to scale up the supply of healthy and sustainably raised food and the market's movement of it.

Nearly 9,000 schools are involved in Farm to School programs that span 42 states. These initiatives range from small rural schools sourcing food from nearby farms to large urban districts joining together to wield serious buying power.

Underlying these efforts is the well-organized and highly focused Farm to School Network. Its national staff and regional leads are on the job of connecting and supporting every aspect of this powerful movement to put healthier food on school lunch trays, and local farm connections in the classroom and into cafeteria purchasing.

Eight regional leads link on-the-ground efforts to each other and assist with information, training, media relations, policy development and more. The national scope includes a major initiative to put farm to school objectives into Congress' reauthorization this year of the Child Nutrition Act. This Nourishing the Nation One Tray at a Time campaign calls attention to the health and wellness power of putting good food in the place where America's kids eat up to 40 percent of their meals for 13 years.

The Farm to School Network and partners, such as the School Food FOCUS initiative to unite and leverage the power of large urban districts, will hold their fourth annual National Farm to Cafeteria conference May 17-19, 2010, in Detroit. The National Good Food Network itself is a partner in creating this conference, deepening connections with other vibrant, national organizations working to scale up good food.

Two organizations share management of the national Farm to School Network: The Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College and the Community Food Security Coalition. These groups launched development of the Network in 2002 and established the formal national network in 2007 with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

To learn more about the Farm to School Network, register for the December 17, 2009 NGFN webinar “An Introduction to the National Farm to School Network.”

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Producers and Buyers Meet Face to Face at Great Lakes Expo

The first step to marketing "food with the farmers face on it" is for food producers and buyers to actually meet, face to face.

That's the purpose of the third annual 'Meet the Buyers' reception Tuesday, Dec. 8, at the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable, and Farm Market Expo in Grand Rapids, MI. Last year, this opportunity to meet up and build business relationships drew nearly 150 farmers and retail and wholesale buyers, including Superior Sales, Spartan Stores, Sysco-Grand Rapids, Meijer, Michigan Department of Corrections, Orchard Markets, Kroger, Heeren Brothers, Testa Produce, Mike Pirrone Produce, and Whole Foods.

The 2009 'Meet the Buyers' reception runs from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and takes place in the Imperial Ballroom of the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. Hosts are Michigan Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS), which is a member of the National Good Food Network's Upper Midwest regional lead team, along with Michigan State University's Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

"'Meet the Buyers' provides a great opportunity for fruit and vegetable farmers who are growing with best agricultural practices to expand their markets,” said Elaine Brown, MIFFS executive director. For more information, including an expanding list of buyers and sponsors, contact MIFFS at miffs@msu.edu, (517) 432-0712 or visit the Meet The Buyers website. 

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NGFN Advisor Says "Doing Together" Is Next Network Step

Among the many people, businesses and organizations that make up the growing National Good Food Network are some key advisors that helped get it off the ground and growing. One is JoAnne Berkenkamp, Program Director for Local Foods at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy based in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

At IATP Berkenkamp leads a major effort to take the movement for healthy, green, fair and affordable food to a new level. IATP's Local Food program is a leader in the farm to school movement, for example, through partnerships with St. Paul Public Schools and the Minnesota School Nutrition Association. USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan recently visited Minnesota to call out the progress Minnesota is making with IATP's help.

St. Paul is the first national pilot site for the School Food FOCUS Initiative, for example, which is focused on moving more healthy and local foods into large urban districts. The Minnesota Department of Health is partnering with IATP to roll out a statewide farm-to-school effort.

The Healthy Corner Stores movement also counts IATP's Local Foods program as a factor in Minnesota where it has partnered with the state health department, distributors, and others to move healthy and local foods to small stores in urban and rural areas across Minnesota. IATP also partners with Compass Group USA on strategies for bolstering the “Ag in the Middle” segment of the farm community through sourcing innovations in the foodservice world.

The Local Foods program is just one component of IATP's powerful presence for many years in sustainable agriculture. It works locally and globally on building the opening markets to support fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems. 

As a consultant with the Wallace Center and other organizations before joining IATP in 2007, Berkenkamp has worked with many new networks that have formed with the hope of sharing lessons learned and creating more impact together than the participants could achieve alone.  The challenge, she says, is for networks to get beyond just connecting to actually working together.

It's a challenge that the National Good Food Network is taking on and which advisors like Berkenkamp will inform. As a member of NGFN's Upper Midwest regional lead team, Berkenkamp says the regional grouping has helped the different organizations involved deepen their relationships and broaden their perspective. "It's provided a whole new set resources, advisors, and supporters for our work."

"There's more to be done, however, to figure out how we can be learning and working across regions," she said. That really takes a systems-level approach, she added. The NGFN is attempting to work on that level by working with local, regional, and national change agents to find strategies that can actually shift the system.

"There are so many ways that we can learn from each other regionally and nationally.  Over time, we’re all becoming stronger for it," she said.

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Online Marketplace Software Reaches Milestone

Roy Guisinger, who provides technical support for a widely adopted local food marketplace software, says it is time to bring the expanding universe of such software together so developers can share ideas and advance their tech side of the good food movement.

More than 20 local and statewide efforts, for example, have built online local food ordering systems upon the open source Local Food Cooperative Software base that Guisinger supports. First developed by the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, the software now has so many users and new uses in the works that Guisinger recently set up a dedicated space for developers of that software to share their ideas and work on code together.

The dedicated developers' listserv has become increasingly active and is a milestone for the Local Food Cooperative Software, as well as for the online marketplace movement, he said.

Local Food Coop Software

"When you have multiple developers actively working on the code, you've reached a point where you're getting the best ideas and are more certain of a good product," he said. At the same time, such high interest in both private and public software for the online local food marketplace means developers will start bumping elbows.

"There are now several software solutions available for local community needs, but there is no one place to communicate," Guisinger said. Some neutral forum for different software developers and local food groups to come together and advance their common work could really help, he added. The potential to link local online marketplaces and write code for trading among regions is just one compelling reason to get the developers together, he said.

"I don't think anyone wants to reinvent the wheel or take business from others," he said of the mostly community-based efforts trying to make local food more available and profitable by making ordering and order fulfillment easier.

Started by Bob Waldrop and colleagues in 2003, the Oklahoma Food Cooperative was one of the first in the nation to build a new local food marketplace over the Internet. The Oklahoma Food Cooperative is still in business and growing, with some 2,000 members - both food producers and consumers -- conducting business online and coordinating transportation of local foods to destinations statewide.

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Updates from NGFN Regional Lead Teams

Regional lead teams of the National Good Food Network are busy on the ground building new food system approaches. Check out their latest news here:

• Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA)
  
• Southwest Marketing Network
  
• Leopold Center
  
• Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) (free subscription)
• Sustainable Food Lab’s Strategy Kitchen
  
• Food Alliance
  
• Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD)
  

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Good Food Media Digest

Food Safety

• USDA is holding two public meetings on proposed regulations to implement a new program under which State-inspected establishments with 25 or fewer employees will be eligible to ship meat and poultry products in interstate commerce. [source]
• FDA chief backs food safety overhaul, but Commissioner Margaret Hamburg tells the Senate that Congress must also fund the reforms, which are aimed at helping the agency prevent food-borne illness rather than just respond to it. [source]
• Ohio State University launched new email address, in addition to their existing phone hotilne, for easy access to food safety information. [source]

Federal Level

• USDA awards $49 million in grants under the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program to promote competitiveness. Total of 55 grants for 745 projects. [source]
• USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum 2010, “Sustainable Agriculture: The Key to Health and Prosperity,” will feature a panel of Whole Foods Market Co-President & COO, Bon Appétit CEO, and recently retired Sysco CEO. Forum will be held in Feb 2010 in Arlington. [source]

Food & Schools

• Richland School District Two, through its school nutrition provider Sodexo, became the first school district in South Carolina to earn the coveted Certified S.C. Grown - Nothing's Finer designation from the state's agricultural department for sourcing more than 25 percent of the produce and products served in schools from local vendors and for supporting healthy eating and local-farming education. [source]
• In Institute of Medicine’s 2009 report  “School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children,” the committee recommends that the USDA adopt standards for menu planning, including: (1) Increasing the amount and variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; (2) Setting a minimum and maximum level of calories; and (3) Focusing more on reducing saturated fat and sodium. [source]
• The Florida "Seafood to Schools" program seeks to bring nutritious seafood from local sources to Florida’s school lunchrooms. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services surveyed the state’s 67 school districts to determine demand for Florida seafood products in elementary, middle and high schools. Feedback indicated there are opportunities for Florida seafood suppliers to provide products for Florida schools. [source]

Retail

• Hannaford Supermarkets unveiled an online map called “Close to Home Vendor Map” to help users local Hannaford vendors in the Northeast US. [source]
• Jewel-Osco is discontinuing Urban Fresh, it’s small-format grocery store aimed at city dwellers. Concept store in Lincoln Park, Chicago is closing October 30th. [source]
• The Smart Choices Program said it would "voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the logo at this time by either new or currently enrolled companies." Consumer advocates and nutritionists have complained that some sugary cereals and high-salt foods display a "Smart Choices" checkmark on their packages to promote the products as healthy. [source]

Other Tidbits

• Green Mountain Power of Vermont has added farm methane to its portfolio of renewable energy sources, which includes hydro, wind, landfill methane and a planned solar plant, with the commissioning of the Westminster Farms plant. About 1,200 cows will provide enough manure to produce about 225 kw of electricity. That's enough electricity to power about 250 homes. [source]
• Grameen Foundation, supported by a $4.7 million grant from the Gates Foundation, will expand its Community Knowledge Worker initiative in Uganda. The initiative is building a self-sustaining, scalable network of rural information providers who use cell phones to help close critical information gaps facing poor, smallholder farmers. They will strengthen the information link to poor farmers by disseminating and collecting relevant information in these underserved communities. [source]

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Add your profile to the NGFN Database

Are you part of a food and farm initiative that more people should know about? Are you skilled or knowledgeable in an area of this work and ready to be part of it? Do you have some research to share? Then create your profile on ngfn.org to make sure your work shows up in the National Good Food Network's database of experts, organizations, and information. The database is just starting. Help it grow into the comprehensive clearinghouse we could all use!

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