Pirate ships, untie.

Some of you may have heard the news earlier this year that Slow Food USA’s Executive Director Richard McCarthy was stepping down from his command after six years. Of course anyone who reads this blog knows he was the founding visionary and 18-year E.D. at Market Umbrella* which is the NGO that manages the Crescent City Farmers Markets in New Orleans, and where I was lucky enough to work as Deputy Director and then as Marketshare Director for a decade. I had departed its solidity and dynamic programs in 2011, feeling as if I needed to use the skills and resources I had gained to build the field of markets across the US and to focus on Farmers Market Coalition’s development, an entity that Richard had raised the initial private funding for and had served as the first board president when it became its own 501 (c) organization. He very graciously allowed me to take most of the materials we had developed at MU to grow my consulting business (Helping Public Markets Grow) and to use it later on as the basis of my current work as part-time staff at Farmers Market Coalition.

Since his move to NYC in 2012, we have kept in regular contact. I had even attended both of the Slow Food Nations events in Denver that happened under his leadership, partly to see if there could be an alignment between the work I did with FMC and with SF, but also to experience some of the synthesis he was famous for orchestrating between NGO leaders and chefs, private foundations and practioners, savvy media types and farmers, and a slew of others who share the theory of change that put farmers and markets in the democratic center of food systems. He always introduced me with the description that I know he had carefully crafted for me: “Darlene is a market guru and my colleague from the New Orleans days of running markets…” Like much of his wordsmithing, it was carefully open-ended and charmingly odd.

Whenever we met up, it was very much as if we were back in the cramped offices of Market Umbrella, discussing both the minute details of the work to put on a market, and the systemic trends and changes we noted and those we hoped to see. I often told him that I wished he would STOP running non-profits, and start to write, speak, and work at a different level on behalf of the entire system of organizers in the food and civic systems.

Now he is happily unmoored from his tether, roaming the world looking for places to put his efforts in the coming years. My goal is getting him visiting the port of farmers markets regularly, and so I am doing my best to get him to work on a farmers market anthology with me, with part of the proceeds benefiting FMC and other worthy orgs. Maybe that will happen, but in the meantime, he is beginning to use the blog format to share his thoughts and to raise his flag.

The blog is called think like pirates, and I can offer a tiny glimmer as to why it is called that, although Richard has developed this idea in new ways since its unveiling. But here is the beginning:

Some years back, I watched a Charlie Rose episode with Tori Amos and found this resonant:

Charlie: Now, this tour with Alanis Morrissette, tell me about her. Do you like her? Do you admire her? Is she good?

Tori: She’s a lovely person, good heart. She’s good at what she does.

Charlie: That’s it?

Tori: That’s good!

Charlie: I mean… well, was there conflict, was there tension? Or was it just a lovefest?

Tori: No tension because… I think honestly, she approached me and she did it in a way that was like, “Hey, lets be creative and put two shows together, two separate shows and um… I had to bring my own production. I didn’t want to do anything where I couldn’t bring my own production because that’s not how I work. I have a pirate ship, I have a captain…

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: I’m the ship. (giggle)

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: I have loads of chefs.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: And all sorts of people floating around. Thieves, fantastic. A few harlots.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: All on my ship.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: And we all had to come and be respected that, you know, no compromise on any level. and, she has her captain, she is her ship, and of course that’s how it had to be approached. And, because of that mutual respect it worked out really well.

I went to the MU office the next day and told Richard about this interview. He immediately connected to it to our work, and came up with his pirate ship anthology for markets. (It is my memory that he had long been obsessed with pirates and maybe that’s why I told him. I believe he already flew a pirate ship flag on the front of his house.)

He began to say in presentations that we have to work as pirate ships, with our own flag, shanties and crew, but mooring together when needed. One day we even came up with a button that said, “Sail Alone, Anchor Together”; I still have one and wear it to market events where it is universally understood.

So I am pleased to introduce my readers to my pal’s new blog. His writing is practical, literate and metaphorical, and will encourage you to ponder it later on that day or week. Maybe over grog on your yardarm…

Market Umbrella was previously organized as ECOnomics Institute, and was a project of the Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice at Loyola University from 1994-2008.

1 Comment Leave a comment

Canada gets a national food policy

Canada’s long-awaited national food policy is getting $134.4 million over five years, on a cash basis, starting next year.

The plan will also see Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) oversee a new $50 million Local Food Infrastructure Fund, to be distributed over five years. The money will help fund and support “infrastructure for local food projects,” including at food banks, farmers’ markets and other community-driven projects.

ipolitics.ca/2019/03/19/budget-2019-canada-gets-a-national-food-policy/

0 Comments Leave a comment

The international language of farmers markets

This is the second piece I have read in as many days about the role of local food to support newly arrived residents. A few years back, I wrote a presentation about trends in farmers markets and what may be coming in the next era: one such possible trend was an increase in attracting immigrant population attendance to markets both as vendors and as shoppers. (Another was the role of planning departments and city officials to use markets to build social cohesion in public space; based on the number of calls and emails from those departments and from municipalities on building or renovating public markets or asking how to work with existing open-air market organizations to create a permanent, public presence for local food, that may be happening in your corner of the world.)
In truth, it is vital that markets start to reach out to a multiplicity of resident demographics, moving away from only using the passive media that attracted the early adopters in the first few decades and moving to targeted outreach and the use of multi-language, graphically-strong materials. When I go to a town that has hired me to help increase their shopping base, one of the first questions I ask is who are the new residents and how many of them are ESL shoppers. I am surprised by how few market organizations know the answer and are unsure of where to find information about the cultural goods and habits of that demographic. In contrast, those markets that are aware and adding materials for those new shoppers are finding more loyal and savvy shoppers of their markets, and ultimately building great farmers too. If you are aware of who is moving to your area, use the FMC listserve to ask other markets with that same population if they have materials or what they used to get their attention. Reach out to government program managers and to centers and settlement houses* to see if there are any in your area.

I did an article for Growing For Markets in the November 2012 issue (“Growers offer immigrants familiar vegetables”) about one such project being conducted in Toronto (which has an incredibly dynamic immigrant population) called the World Crops Project which had all of the main components for successful entry for growers into the local markets. It was a very thoughtful approach to newly arrived residents being seen as both producers and as shoppers. Here is the link but you will need a subscription to Growing For Markets to access it. If you don’t have a subscription, maybe now is the time to get one. They have a great archive of articles for growers that can be shared with vendors.

So build those partnerships and ask for the research to help your market find its next wave of community members.

Quote from the first article:

Unlike other ubiquitous institutions like hospitals or government, a person can operate in a market without knowledge of the local language, provided they speak marketese, the international language of farmer’s markets.

Source: Read the rest of the above article here

The other piece on immigrants and food systems comes out of the excellent work being done in Buffalo NY. This was a qualitative case study of two ethnic food retailers and how they could advance the grower-retailer relationship.

Ethnic retail food outlets can not only improve public health by stocking and selling healthy foods to urban consumers; they can also provide a market for produce grown locally and regionally. Typically, ethnic growers must travel long distances to acquire produce. Local governments can facilitate networking among local and regional growers and ethnic wholesalers/distributors/retailers to evaluate possibilities for growing (at least some) ethnic crops within their region. One of the store owners interviewed for this study reported that she occasionally visits produce markets in Buffalo, and she expressed interest in working with local farmers more systematically to grow high-demand ethnic vegetables, to allow her to stock this produce more consistently.

Dowload the report here

• “Since World War II, the number of settlements has fluctuated. Today, it is estimated that there are more than 900 settlement houses in the United States, according to UNCA, an association of 156 of them.”

0 Comments Leave a comment

What if Our Economic System Was Set Up to Generate Happiness?

In the design of our community food system, it is clear that our work must be coordinated with other sectors of civil society even as we do our best to remain light and fun and designed to encourage regular, easy participation. Some may assign this work under the social determinants of health but I think organizers need to be expansive and exciting with words as often as possible. Using terms such as lasting happiness and well-being as goals of our work offers that vision.

This podcast showcases Liz Ziedler, co-founder of Happy City Bristol, an organization geared towards fostering holistic happiness in Bristol, U.K., through measurement tools, workshops, and campaigns.
Lasting happiness should be our real aim for any system change and one that is articulated by a sense of community, purpose in your life, availability to nature and so on. All of these things can be helped with the community food system leading the way. ( I love her idea of “topping off the reservoir” of good times to build the resilience you need for tougher times. Wouldn’t that be a cool way to describe one impact gained from regularly attending farmers markets?)
What works helping people and places to flourish? What supports that kind of mind shift?
Here is how Happy City does their work:

– communication and campaigns: using all kinds of mediums to get people thinking, talking, sharing about well-being;
– training: get skills and habits into lives to know and use resiliency tactics;
– measurement and policy: offering an alternative to using GDP as the measurement for the individual, for communities and organizations and policymakers (Happy City Pulse). Survey of different areas of well-being, using academic and experiential knowledge to measure (loosely):
Be (emotional)
Do (behavioral
Connect (social)

HC uses the federated territory model (love the term) to help each place using Happy City’s resources maintain their own path and independence.

Their Happy City Index also measures if the right conditions exist to build well-being.

Lots of great ideas as to how to combat industrial system or commodity thinking and language and tools for us to use. The discussion in the interview about the connection of happiness, equity, and sustainability was really great. As was the talk around challenging the status quo on economic measurement through individual patterns which then leads to those engaged persons entering the political arena to work on changes at the municipal level and then to the system level.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Citizens should lead

A link to my reviews of 3 new books that may inspire some to get thee to city hall or at least remind us of the possibilities of better design of urban places.

On a related note, I think every food system organizer (really, every organizer) needs to know Jane Jacobs. One new book that I am still working my way through may help those of you not interested in reading about her life story or diving into her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vital Little Plans is a collection of many of her shorter pieces and her talks, including some of what she wrote on her way to publishing Death and Life. One of the editors (Storring) works at Projects For Public Spaces (PPS), a consulting firm well known for its market technical assistance, Placemaking tools, and workshops. (Exciting news: They should be announcing their 2018 Public Market Conference location very soon too.)

Readers will find classics here, including Jacobs’s breakout article “Downtown Is for People,” as well as lesser-known gems like her speech at the inaugural Earth Day and a host of other rare or previously unavailable essays, articles, speeches, interviews, and lectures. Some pieces shed light on the development of her most famous insights, while others explore topics rarely dissected in her major works, from globalization to feminism to universal health care.

Buy it near you at an independent bookstore.

0 Comments Leave a comment

The Circular Economy | The UnSchool

Closing the loop on production, consumption, design, and the economy

The circular economy is a smarter and more effective way of producing high-need things with high-value in the economy and with much less waste, pollution, exploitation, and other negative impacts.

By taking this class you will get a 360 degree perspective of what the circular economy is, how it applies to different levels of decision making, and theories and practices that have gone into making it work today — biomimicry, cradle-to-cradle & sustainable design strategies, and product service system models.

Source: Enroll in Course for $45

0 Comments Leave a comment

System thinking among market leaders: advocacy, mobilization and organizing.

As leaders, you should be cognizant of 3 levels of activism: advocacy, mobilization and organizing. Knowing the difference between those is often the key to avoiding burnout and engaging people successfully: actively educating others about ideas and needs around your market and its producers (advocacy), encouraging others to be active about those ideas and needs (mobilization), teaching others to lead, defining tactics and building campaign strategies to push those ideas forward or to address a looming legislative crisis(organizing). There are wonderful resources like this one from NYFC to get up to speed on the skills and tactics necessary for different types of work. It is also vital that this work is visible at the local, state and at regional and/or national level.

as markets

advocacy: Don’t Hide the Hard Work: Get ready folks, as this is my new mantra. It is wonderful that markets work hard to put on lovely, comforting markets that celebrate all that is good in community food and hide the duct tape that keeps it all together, but sometimes I think we leave the market organization’s own story behind. In order for it to be seen as a community asset, it is important that those who use it understand that money must be raised, partnerships have to be managed, and logistical issues are constant. So tell the story of the market and producers in words and pictures to audiences that are interested in expanding its impacts to others nearby. Don’t just tell the same “product available” version week after week, month after month; mix it up and instead use your email newsletter to advocate for a single policy change or to explain the FMPP proposal process or to highlight an evolution that one of your vendors has achieved or is working on. For example, it may be a story about one of your vendors getting their products on grocery store shelves and share some of the steps in terms of policy changes or product development that it took to get that done.

mobilization: • Ask your community to send out emails and tweets when legislators or other audiences need to understand how to make community food better. • Post your municipality’s public meetings and your state’s legislative schedule and invite members of your market community to attend as a group, dropping off some of FMC advocacy materials with your market information. That way, some of you might become information providers on food and farming issues for your legislators when necessary. • Don’t rely entirely on social media to mobilize everyone: Create a phone tree among your producers and affiliated stakeholders for when you want them to call about an issue concerning the market or production. • Offer bulleted points for people to write their own emails or letters. Don’t spend time creating online petitions; legislators rarely take those seriously. They are fine to raise awareness among a group of voters but do little beyond that when it comes to policy changes.

organizing: • Build an advisory team made up of vendors, shoppers, and neighbors. If possible, include younger people like vendors’ teenage children or employees, using the time to talk about policy issues affecting your market and its producers. Ask them to write short pieces for the market’s newsletter or tag along when you do an interview about the market. You’d be surprised how quickly members of your market community will get comfortable in talking about and even for the market if you bring them along carefully and with sensitivity to their fears about public speaking. • Invite state leaders to open the season (even for year-round markets) at the market with a ribbon-cutting ceremony or a bell-ringing. Ask a vendor board member or longtime shopper to spend a few minutes showing the leaders around. • Use Dot Surveys to regularly ask visitors and vendors questions about local issues and not always about food or farming. Post the responses and share them with the municipality.

as coalition members

advocacy: Don’t Hide the Hard Work. • Team up with the area’s intermediate buyers like restaurants to build support for farmers using multiple sales outlets. Ask those chefs and store buyers to use their social media sites to talk about the daily work of the market and your farmers.

mobilization: • Share data on your market impacts with your fellow markets and other food and farming advocates. • Organize a “rapid response team”for misleading stories about markets or farmers to give some context or analysis for the media or the market community. • Create a shared google calendar for writing letters to editors, to legislators and to your state’s policymakers on food and farming.

organizing: • Become members of an active market coalition and of at least one coalition where good food is not the primary goal; make sure any coalition you join is actively working on solutions for markets, producers or shoppers, and inclusive and transparent in its process. In those cases where it is less useful to meet regularly with nearby markets, focus on joining larger coalitions- like FMC of course!- but also try to find markets across the US that are similar to yours in terms of size, age or intent and organize yourself into an issue group. • Encourage your active community members to add a food and farming approach to their work if they are part of other groups, like anti-fracking, safe streets, immigration or in networking events for different professions (i.e. architects specializing in green building or recreational fishers) • Organize an event to show what a local food system looks and acts using as a toy village set up at your town hall or at the community center. Show some of the many, many films on food and farming now available.

This is only the beginning of the conversation. Be prepared to hear more from me and others about the need for our market leaders to engage on many issues outside market day. Remember too that markets are already “ahead” of many other organizers in that our work is all about being bridge-builders and working with people with a wide range of goals and perspectives. Let’s use our place in the public arena to connect more people and to build support for food sovereignty and active citizenship. And remind each other to not to allow “naive cynicism” to cloud our future or to limit the possibilities for action.

P.S. Hopefully most of you saw this on various listserves from Debbie Hillman but I think it bears reposting as often as possible:

Post election, this seems a good moment for U.S. food-and-farm activists to compare how federal resources are used on a regional (or state) level, especially whether these resources are

— truly accessible to anyone and everyone

— truly responsive to food-and-farm activists and practitioners.

In this email, I am focusing on the seven regional offices of USDA’s Food & Nutrition Service (FNS), which is the primary federal division that focuses on food access — the food side of the food-and-farm dyad.

1. USDA FNS REGIONAL OFFICEsHere is a list of the seven USDA FNA Regional Offices:

Mid-Atlantic (Robbinsville, NJ), Midwest (Chicago, IL), Mountain Plains (Denver, CO), Northeast (Boston, MA), Southeast (Atlanta, GA), Southwest (Dallas, TX), Western (San Francisco, CA)See https://www.fns.usda.gov/fns-regional-offices for a list of the states served by each.

2. QUESTIONS to spark reflection and sharing

What do USDA FNS Regional offices do for food-and-farm activists?

How do activists in each region engage with the regional offices?

What can we learn from each other, region to region?

In 2017, what do we want to maintain in our regional offices?

In 2017, what do we want to put in place in our regional offices?

3. MIDWEST OFFICE EXAMPLE: GoodGreens (OH, IN, MI, IL, WI, MN)

To kickstart the conversation, here is a description of GoodGreens, a monthly networking event (plus monthly newsletters), hosted by the Midwest Office of USDA FNS. I have written about GoodGreens before, but have never asked about other regional offices. In my opinion, GoodGreens is a win-win model of government staff engaging with residents.

Official description: GoodGreens – Supporting local food systems in the Midwest RegionGoodGreens is a collaboration facilitated by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Midwest Region to share resources and best practices that support sustainable local foods production and increase consumption of healthy, locally grown foods. GoodGreens meetings are held monthly in person at the USDA Midwest Regional Office in downtown Chicago and via conference call.

WHAT

— Monthly networking meetings open to anyone (every month except December)

— Monthly newsletters (usually 2 per month)

— Occasional special notices (new USDA grant cycle, events)

WHO

Public Affairs Office (Alan Shannon, Public Affairs Director)

USDA FNS Midwest Office

PRACTICAL BENEFITS TO REGIONAL ACTIVISTS

— Regular and easy-to-ready information (including meeting agendas and minutes)

— Meet or learn about other activists (people, organizations, businesses, projects)

— Connect niche areas (farm-to-school, urban agriculture, food hubs, etc.)

— Connect geographically (find potential partners in same state, county, municipality, etc.)

— Share details of your work (presentation at meetings, announcement through newsletter, etc.)

— Access to information about current resources (jobs, grants, events, etc.)

— Food justice activists learn about farm justice

— Farm justice activists learn about food justice

— Mutual learning among rural, urban, suburban communities

— Meetings are well organized but informal, held in a circle (conference call capability for people who can’t come to the office)

— Easy coalition building – no one is excluded

PRACTICAL BENEFITS TO USDA FNS REGIONAL OFFICE

— Easy way for regional office to learn about new food-and-farm initiatives

— Creates database and regional and state-by-state snapshot of food-and-farm issues

— Professional development for government staff: observe and learn the interconnection of everything and everyone in the food system

— Non-partisan (office is a facilitator, not a promoter of any agenda)

COST

— Free to activists

— Little additional cost (if any) to USDA FNS regional office

HISTORY

GoodGreens began in 2007 as a collaboration between the USDA FNS Regional Office and a Chicago Congressman (Bobby Rush, 1st Cong. District – IL). I believe that Cong. Rush was getting a lot of requests from constituents about food-and-farm issues. Like most urban people in the U.S. (who are trained to be ignorant of the food-and-farm system), no one really knew what to do. So a senior staff member in Cong. Rush’s office (Anton Seals) suggested monthly networking meetings. These meetings were originally held in Cong. Rush’s office. After a couple of years, they were moved permanently to the USDA FNS Midwest Regional Office in downtown Chicago.

REPLICATION IN OTHER REGIONAL OFFICES?

I think that this model is easily replicable in other regional offices — and would even be a good model for civic engagement in most (if not all) areas of government. Getting a local Congressional representative on board might be one of the best ways to start the conversation.

Key to replicating this model is having a Public Affairs Director who is really interested in people and mutual sharing, in addition to being concerned about food access. In my opinion, we would not have GoodGreens without Alan Shannon, who set the tone for GoodGreens from the very beginning. (I sure hope we can keep him, but I’d be willing to share if he can help other government offices learn how easy it is to engage with the people they’re supposed to serve.)

SAMPLE NEWSLETTER: Jan. 26, 2017 meeting

Here is a link to the most recent GoodGreens newsletter (now on Constant Contact):

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/GoodGreens–New-Grants–Opportunities–News–January-26th-Meeting-Info—More.html?soid=1123821222616&aid=Y1jEVdlwkIs

Contains:

— Agenda for Jan. 26, 2017 meeting

— News, Resources, Grants, and More….

— Sign-up to receive future newsletters

4. OTHER USDA FNS REGIONAL OFFICES?

I’d be interested to hear about what’s going on in the other six USDA FNS Regional Offices. Maybe activists in the Midwest Region would want to borrow from the other offices. I’m pretty sure that others on COMFOOD, FNS, and NAFSN would be interested, too. — Debbie

P.S.S. Check out Mark Bittman’s post in Civil Eats too. This is from that piece:

You can’t fix agriculture without addressing immigration and labor or without rethinking energy policies; you can’t improve diets without reducing income inequality, which in turn requires unqualified equal rights for women and minorities; you can’t encourage people to cook more at home without questioning gender roles or the double or triple shifts that poor parents often must accept to make ends meet; you can’t fully change the role of women without tackling the future of work, childcare, and education; you can’t address climate change without challenging the power of corporations and their control over the state—and, not so incidentally, without challenging Big Food. The fight for healthy diets is part and parcel of these other struggles, and it will be won or lost alongside them.

It’s all connected; the common threads are justice, fairness, and respect. “Sustainable” is a word that we must now apply to democracy itself: a nation built on perpetuating injustice and the exploitation of people and nature doesn’t qualify. And a “sustainable food system” cannot exist inside an unsustainable political and economic system.

1 Comment Leave a comment

The Farm-To-Table Movement and Rural Gentrification

Nice article on food-based communities cropping up in rural areas, although I am bit puzzled by the choice of title.
In many ways, rural places are in a better position to build an entire system that supports the farmer than the urban garden movement has been able to do. There, one can start with the farm and the farmer and build out in an expanding set of connected circles.
Of course, we need all types of food production in our regions; urban, suburban and rural and building prototypes of each is the first step to that.The next step will be to then connect these local food systems into a regional system which has been done in very few instances.
I know the Saxapahaw model and even wrote about the store and farm in an
https://darlenewolnik.com/?s=saxapahaw on here. I have also written about the tension that arises when a rural farm community adds these innovative entrepreneurial outlets; in a book that Ben Hewitt wrote about Hardwick VT.

Source: The Farm-To-Table Movement and Rural Gentrification – CityLab

0 Comments Leave a comment

Home Place Pastures to Become USDA Processing Plant in Mississippi

If you read the From 0 to 35 in Mississippi post here last fall, you know that the good food revolution in my neighboring state has been lacking a few important items to help build their capacity such as USDA processing facilities. The news of one opening in MS is very, very welcome as without it, producers are severely limited to what, where and how much they can sell. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a new level of infrastructure for direct marketing family farms across the Magnolia State.

Here is a good site for producers of niche meat processing to have handy.

Source: Home Place Pastures to Become First Slaughter, Processing Plant in Mississippi | HottyToddy.com

0 Comments Leave a comment

Local currency helps communities decide “Who tells your story”

This story is from one of my mentor think tanks, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics on their community’s robust currency system:

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced a plan to redesign the $5, $10, and $20 to be more inclusive. Too bad we have to wait until 2020 to start spending money that reflects the diversity of our country… or do we? Residents of the Berkshire region of Western Massachusetts can already walk around with a diverse history of their region in their pockets – the local currency BerkShares celebrate some of the most important figures associated with the area.

One fan of BerkShares was inspired by the opening song from Hamilton to write his own introduction, in verse, for the woman that we celebrate on the 10! Thanks to Scott Grimm-Lyon for sharing his version of the story of Robyn Van En:

The ten BerkShare female farmer with just a prayer,
saw land controlled by the millionaire,
considered the general welfare,
knew food should not be grown elsewhere,
went into the town square,
preached against local laissez-faire,
and started the world’s first farm share.

Source: Local currency helps communities decide “Who tells your story”

0 Comments Leave a comment

Wrapping up 2015 with ACEnet

Of all of the end of year requests for support for food system work that have been in my inbox this week, this is only one of two that I am going to post about.
If you are not aware of the work that ACEnet does in their region and shares across the continent, then I am happy to be the source for your introduction. I originally connected to them through the legendary Athens Farmers Market (AFM), through the legendary ACEnet staffer/AFM partner, Leslie Schaller. I saw firsthand how they incubate micro enterprises in the region and because of that work, actively support outlets like markets that offer a step up to those businesses. Since then, I have also learned about the 30-mile meal project, the great regional work around towns such as Athens, Nelsonville and Newark and, of course, the state and system-level policy work they do on behalf of all of their constituencies.
As a native Northeast Ohioan who did community organizing in this region 30 years ago, I am constantly impressed by the visionary work now being done and I know that ACEnet is a proud partner to most if not all of it. It is important to note that this corner of the Appalachian corridor has some very deep problems when it comes to economic opportunity and land use and yet is one of the most vibrant market farming centers in the country, and famous for the number of worker-owned businesses thriving in it.

If you are driving through Southern Ohio (maybe to get to SSAWG conferencein KY in early 2016), I’d recommend that you see if you can tour their facilities or at least visit one of their projects.

And you can help ACEnet see another 30 Years: Join ACEnet’s 30th Anniversary donor drive at http://www.acenetworks.org/support.

Source: Wrapping up 2015 with ACEnet!

0 Comments Leave a comment

From 0 to 35 in MS

I have worked with markets and farmers in Mississippi for a dozen years and have found more barriers to getting regional food accepted than in most other areas of the US, yet also have met some of the most optimistic and capable people working on it there.
What’s interesting is that in going from a deeply (still) entrenched commodity/plantation culture of farming directly to a new economy of small family farming for markets and restaurants can mean that some of the middle steps can be skipped, which is beneficial to innovative growers.

In other words, the situations is similar to what has happened in many non-industrialized or colonized countries in regards to technology; having skipped the landline era, the new users adapt much more quickly to the technology of mobility*.
I can see this leapfrogging in play for sustainable farming in the Gulf States with new farmers pushing the envelope with pesticide-free and heirloom varieties at markets and in CSAs, rather than being influenced by the less inspiring midcentury distribution system that hardened growers’ experience into growing the hardiest and tasteless products to ship.
The area around Oxford MS is one that is ready for takeoff. The small farmer markets offer organic products at a higher rate than the New Orleans farmers markets for example, and the average age of the vendors seems markedly less than the US average, to my unscientific eye. The chef quoted in the article below is a pal of mine and had been the Board President of the New Orleans-based Market Umbrella before Katrina, and now is a leader in the regional food movement in Oxford. He offers his knowledge to the markets and farmers around the area as well supporting the leading agricultural advocates, Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network (MSAN), which was founded with Wallace Center support a few years back. Corbin and MSAN are good example of the quiet revolution happening up there.

Additionally, the folks in Hernando MS (north of Oxford, closer to Memphis TN) are leading the state in innovative healthy living strategies and thinking deeply about how to expand regional farming to support those strategies. Their weekly market is large enough to attract serious attention from regional funders and even policy makers, and I have hopes that they might soon attempt to create a year round market.

Continue reading →

1 Comment Leave a comment

Waterloo, Louisiana: An Open Letter to New Orleans – Antigravity Magazine

The published letter linked below was written by one of our region’s most innovative direct marketing bakers, and (obviously) one with a great deal of sensitivity and wisdom. Graison has struggled with getting the ends to meet in his tiny business (even while he is unquestionably the region’s preeminent bread baker), much less in it pulling him to the place he dreams his business should be.
He and I have talked a few times about the lack of support for small producers in our region and I can assure you that he is ready to talk with or work with anyone willing to further the needs of he and his peers, but to little avail.
I recommend that people read his essay and also read between the lines of what would drive a full-time baker to spend his time writing and publishing this. If you want my response now, it is because he knows what is at stake is his entire future and the future of the healthy food revolution that may never reach maturity unless we deal with the issues that small businesses face everyday: the lack of infrastructure support, duplicative regulations, half-hearted allegiance to local ingredient sourcing among shoppers, refusal by many (most?) to address vital environmental concerns in food work, commodity-type products taking most of the shelf space-if and when local is even invited, the lack of skilled workers available, necessary policy changes not handled by organizers of food initiatives and so on.
So ask yourself-are you doing everything you can as often as you can for your anchor vendors?
Waterloo, Louisiana: An Open Letter to New Orleans – Antigravity Magazine.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Evergreen Cooperatives: The Cleveland Model

Gar Alperovitz is a historian, political economist, activist, and writer. He has written many books, including The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and, more recently, What Then Must We Do? Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution. He grew up in Racine, Wisconsin, and has contributed to numerous efforts at economic reconstruction, including in Youngstown and Cleveland, Ohio. All of which he discussed with n+1.

n+1: What is the Cleveland Model? 

GA: The idea is to set up an institution, not a corporation, but something else, within a geographic community. And then on that structure you build worker-owned and multi-stakeholder firms that cannot be sold off, which is critical. This means that any growth that happens is distributed more equally because everybody collectively and individually owns a piece of the asset whose value is appreciating, whose revenue is growing.

Then you’ve got these anchor institutions I was talking about earlier: hospitals and universities—Case Western, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals. Medicare, Medicaid, education efforts—lots of public money in the area: Those three Cleveland institutions alone purchase $3 billion in goods and services a year. That’s leaving aside salaries and construction—just what they buy. And, until now, none of it from that area. So the model directs some of that purchasing power to the multi-stakeholder firms and co-ops.

Now, these are not your traditional small-scale co-ops. The model draws heavily on the experience of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world’s most successful large-scale cooperative effort, which now employs around eighty thousand workers in more than 250 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial, and other largely cooperatively owned businesses.

In Cleveland now, there are three such firms. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry [ECL] is the flagship, and it capitalizes on the expanding demand for laundry services from the health-care sector, which is huge, something like 18 percent of the national GDP and growing. After a six-month initial “probationary” period, employees begin to buy into the co-op through payroll deductions of fifty cents an hour over three years (for a total of $3,000). Employee-owners build an equity stake in the business over time—a potentially substantial amount of money in a tough neighborhood. Also, it’s totally green, with the smallest carbon footprint of any industrial-scale laundry in northeast Ohio. Most industrial-scale laundries use four to five gallons of water per pound of laundry; ECL uses eight-tenths of a gallon to do the same job.

The second employee-owned enterprise is Evergreen Energy Solutions, which does large-scale solar panel installations on the roofs of the city’s largest nonprofit health, education, and municipal buildings—again, those anchor institutions I was talking about.

The third enterprise is Green City Growers, which operates a year-round hydroponic food production greenhouse in the midst of the Glendale neighborhood in east Cleveland. The 230,000-square-foot greenhouse—larger than the average Walmart superstore—will be producing more than three million heads of fresh lettuce and nearly half a million pounds of (highly profitable) basil and other herbs a year.

Does Cleveland Know the Secret to Building Wealth Without Gentrification? – Next City.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Charlie: Now, this tour with Alanis Morrissette, tell me about her. Do you like her? Do you admire her? Is she good?

Tori: She’s a lovely person, good heart. She’s good at what she does.

Charlie: That’s it?

Tori: That’s good!

Charlie: I mean… well, was there conflict, was there tension? Or was it just a lovefest?

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: I’m the ship. (giggle)

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: I have loads of chefs.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: And all sorts of people floating around. Thieves, fantastic. A few harlots.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: All on my ship.

Charlie: Yes.

Tori: And we all had to come and be respected that, you know, no compromise on any level. and, she has her captain, she is her ship, and of course that’s how it had to be approached. And, because of that mutual respect it worked out really well.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

as markets

as coalition members

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: