For-profit and non-profit incorporations are still hot topics among markets. Recently, there has been a flurry of comments on the FMC Listserve about 501(c)3s, which shows how this is still an emerging field.
The B Corp is another layer for corporations to consider. It allows for some parallel benefits to exist side by side, and Ben and Jerry’s has joined their ranks it seems:
Ben And Jerry’s Becomes A B Corporation | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.
Since the Community Food Project RFP is out and proposals are due November 28, this handy new guide should be very useful. As someone who has written one and had it funded, I will say that this grant program is a very useful way to pull off an in-depth pilot for extending and expanding food systems. Good luck to anyone that is working on one.
Below, we showcase just 21 of the many recent policies and laws enacted by governments worldwide that are helping change the food system, promote sustainable agriculture, and eradicate hunger.
All the best,
Danielle Nierenberg
Nourishing the Planet Project Director
Worldwatch Institute
http://www.nourishingtheplanet.org
P.S. Remember to connect with Nourishing the Planet on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Flickr, where you will find infographics, quotes, original video, articles, and news that can’t be found anywhere else.
1. The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act was passed in 2010 with a focus on improving the nutrition of children across the United States. Authorizing funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs, this legislation allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to make real reforms to school lunch and breakfast programs and promote healthy eating habits among the nation’s youth. Read more about the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act and 15 innovations making school meals healthier and more sustainable on the Nourishing the Planet blog.
2. The Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) was founded in 2011 to help improve the provision of services to farmers in the country. It focuses on adapting its policies to local needs, developing sustainable production systems, and providing farmers and consumers with education, techniques, and services to help supply Rwandans with better foods. The RAB has received praise for its efforts from organizations like the Executive Board of the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa.
3. Beginning in 2008, the Australian government committed $12.8 million for 190 primary schools across Australia to participate in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Hoping to encourage healthy and nutritious eating habits in young Australians, the program works with primary schools to teach students how to grow, harvest, prepare, and share fresh food.
4. In 2007, the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign was launched in the U.K. by the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme. The organization helps reduce food waste by providing tips and encouragement to households across the U.K. and prevented 137,000 tons of food waste by 2009 alone. Find out five simple things you can do prevent food waste on our blog.
5. Argentina made legislative efforts in 2011 to limit foreign land ownership and protect domestic farmers. This regulation, which restricts foreign investors to a 1,000 hectare limit, prevents the establishment of massive, foreign-owned industrial farms and helps to create a domestic community of land owners and farmers with Argentine needs and interests, rather than profits, in mind.
6. The Liberian Ministry of Agriculture and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization are working together to support rural Liberian poultry farmers—most of whom are women. The project includes training and materials for rural farmers about raising and producing poultry, as well as for harvesting cow peas as a sustainable source of poultry feed. These policies have helped rural farmers earn higher incomes and increase their access to protein-rich foods.
7. In recent years, European countries including Italy, Germany, Slovenia, and France have all passed regulations banning pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have been linked to declining bee populations. Bees pollinate a variety of crops and their decline could have disastrous impacts on food security. Learn more about how neonicotinoids are contributing to declining bee populations on our blog.
8. In 2011, the city of San Francisco passed the Urban Agriculture Ordinance, amending the zoning code to allow food production for personal and public use, provide guidelines and requirements for urban farms, and regulate sales of harvested products and value-added goods. This law has helped San Francisco become a national example of urban agriculture and a promoter of healthy, sustainable diets and communities.
9. Beginning in 2011, the state government of Bihar in India made a major initiative to subsidize farmers practicing organic vegetable farming and to curtail rampant use of agrochemicals on vegetable farms. By providing a subsidy of up to 75 percent to farmers, the Bihar government hopes that organic farmers will be able to get higher prices for their products as well as provide consumers with healthier, local foods.
10. As of August 2012, the USDA awarded $85,000 to the state of Minnesota to expand the number of farmers markets that accept food stamps. With this funding, they hope that low-income consumers, who usually lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables, will have better access to fresh produce and more nutritious diets.
11. The Carbon Farming Initiative, passed by the Australian government in 2011, awards carbon credit to farmers who store carbon or reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their plots. This credit can then be sold to people and businesses wishing to offset their emissions, which rewards farmers who utilize techniques that minimize or absorb greenhouse gas emissions.
12. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White ruled in 2010 that 256 acres of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets be pulled from the ground and barred them from being grown in Arizona and Oregon. Agreeing with advocates opposed to GM crops, Judge White ruled that the USDA did not properly review the ecological impacts of GM sugar beets before deregulating them in 2005. With the concern that GM beets would contaminate organic varieties, this case was a success in the protection of organic vegetables against GM varieties. Find out more about court rulings concerning GM vegetables on our blog.
13. The Safe Food for Canadians Act was passed in June 2012, consolidating the powers of several previous food safety acts, including the Canada Agricultural Products Act and Meat Inspection Act, into one comprehensive piece of legislation. With the combined authority of these acts, the Safe Food for Canadians Act will implement tougher penalties for putting consumer health and safety at risk, strengthen food traceability, and institute a more consistent inspection regime for all foods in Canada.
14. A law was recently passed by the European Union concerning food information for consumers. The regulation, approved in 2011, amends previous legislation by enforcing nutrition labels on processed foods, origin labeling of fresh meat, highlighting allergens in the list of ingredients, and other protective measures. Through this law, European consumers will be given better information about the food products they consume, allowing them to make safer and healthier choices.
15. In 2011, the Oregon Legislature passed the Farm to School and School Garden Bill, appropriating funds for a competitive grants program in two school districts. These programs will help to stabilize markets for local food growers, increase the availability of healthy products, and teach students about where their food comes from. Check out another great initiative which is feeding and educating our youth on our blog.
16. New York City became the first American city toban the sale of sugared drinks larger than 16 ouncesin 2012. Affecting restaurants, sports arenas, movie theaters, and convenience stores throughout the city, the ban is an attempt to mitigate rising obesitylevels. Because sugary drinks are unhealthy, the ban aims toprevent New Yorkers from consuming an excess of calories and sugar.
17. Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a law in mid-2011 that set up funding for state-run seed and fertilizer production. Looking to end Bolivian dependence on foreign seeds and to protect biodiversity as well as native foodstuffs, the government plans to invest $5 billion by 2021, with generous credits to small farmers in efforts to ensure food security for Bolivians.
18. The government of Ghana is making major strides in regard to food security and sustainable incomes for its citizens. The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority, for example, created under the late John Atta Mills, has fostered sustainable agricultural methods in Ghana’s impoverished north. Under the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor, Ghana prioritized national agricultural policies and cut hunger from 34 percent in 1990 to 9 percent in 2004, an achievement which earned President Kufuor the World Food Prize in 2011.
19. Starting in 2011, Denmark became the first nation in the world to levy a tax which directly targets saturated fat in foods. At an extra US$2.85 per kilogram of food with more than 2.3 percent saturated fat, the tax is designed to curb the consumption of saturated fat, which is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and obesity. Read more about Denmark’s fat tax on our blog.
20. From 2007 to 2011, 26 African nations, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and the Republic of Congo, signed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Compact. The aims of the Programme are to boost African productivity in the agricultural sector and provide African nations with greater food security. As part of these goals, the Programme plans to make the continent a net exporter of agricultural products, distribute wealth equitably to rural populations, and employ environmentally sound production strategies to promote a culture of sustainable management of natural resources across Africa.
21. The USDA passed the Access to Pasture Rule in 2010, which contains clear and enforceable regulations concerning access to pasture for organic livestock. Mandating that livestock must be able to actively graze on a daily basis, the Access to Pasture Rule not only ensures that livestock operations are healthy and more sustainable, but holds organic livestock production to pasture-based rather than factory farming-based production standards.
Love this article from Sunday’s NYT which was sent to me by a non-foodie friend. As always, I appreciate Pollan’s clarity and honesty, but I do disagree that this election season is a litmus test for our work.
The present administration has not made localized healthy food systems a core part of its mandate yet and as much as I appreciate the First Lady’s resolve and leadership on good food, lets be honest: it’s not the only flag (or even the main flag) that they are flying. As for initiatives, ballot referendums in California have yet to have serious impact on the rest of the nation. Trust me-I worked on Ohio’s Issue 5 back in the 1990s that was modeled on California’s labeling law of cancer and birth defect-causing ingredients: talk about a bloodbath.
I also say that the issues centrally addressed by this referendum are exactly what we are NOT about: refashioning the industrial food system at its edges. Our work is life and death on every front and about creating an alternative food system that by its very life means death to poisonous, fake foods controlled by a few dozen monolithic corporations. (Asking them to refashion their products for approval is like Al Capone being asked to use a 6 shooter rather than a Tommy gun-everyone would still be in danger and he would still have become richer and more powerful.)
I’d say that the true test of this system as an election kingmaker will be when there are actually candidates that stump for office using localized healthy food systems for all as their mandate. Unfortunately, that has little chance of happening on its own.
The other way we can test this system is when we actually reach across race and class lines and age groups to find one day that the majority of the country has 1) successfully shopped at a farmers market more than once 2) went to a school that regularly served healthy food that was culturally recognizable 3) honors farmers and harvesters by refusing to vote for developments that drive up prices of farmland or waterfront property and 3) choose brands that don’t pollute, use dangerous ingredients or undercut workers to bring you the best price on a product.
Then, the mandate in DC will not depend on the weak resolve of a privately funded politician, but on the goodwill of the electorate. And yeah, until then, it’s a damn good article about movements.
“One of the more interesting things we will learn on Nov. 6 is whether or not there is a “food movement” in America worthy of the name — that is, an organized force in our politics capable of demanding change in the food system. People like me throw the term around loosely, partly because we sense the gathering of such a force, and partly (to be honest) to help wish it into being by sheer dint of repetition. Clearly there is growing sentiment in favor of reforming American agriculture and interest in questions about where our food comes from and how it was produced. And certainly we can see an alternative food economy rising around us: local and organic agriculture is growing far faster than the food market as a whole. But a market and a sentiment are not quite the same thing as a political movement — something capable of frightening politicians and propelling its concerns onto the national agenda.”
Often, I talk about forms of capital and how it’s a great framework for defining local food systems. I use the forms of capital for the Indicator Matrix framework that I have been working on Farmers Market Coalition (FMC). I thought I would share the handout given to me that defines a great many of them; I believe this is a Ford Foundation handout done by Yellow Wood Associates, an excellent consulting firm that is focusing on the same outcomes that our market field is hoping to achieve.
Here is the list of capitals that the handout defines:
Intellectual (FMC refers to this as human)
Social
Individual
Natural
Built
Political
Financial
The 2013 conference program and registration information is now available on the Southern SAWG website. You will love the program we have put together for this year’s Practical Tools and Solutions for Sustaining Family Farms conference. There are even more sessions and pre-conference events this year!
Pre-Conference Offerings:
Wed & Thurs – Jan. 23-24
Short Courses
Our popular 1½ day pre-conference short courses are intensive learning experiences that provide comprehensive information on whole farming enterprises. With the in-class presentations and the extensive take-home materials, they give you the knowledge you most need to be successful with your enterprise.
Program info here
Mini Courses
Our ½ day pre-conference mini courses provide in-depth information on specific topics in greater depth than is possible in our regular conference sessions. Our expert presenters provide you the latest information and answer your pressing questions on the topics you requested.
Mini Courses Here
Field Trips
For those who learn best by getting out in the field, we offer five outstanding field trips this year. Our ½ day pre-conference field trips are geared toward organic and sustainable production and marketing of horticultural crops and livestock and community food initiatives. Click here to learn more about these outstanding field trips.
General Conference Info:
Fri & Sat – Jan. 25-26
Expert Presenters
Each year conference participants tell us the great line-up of presenters with their practical experience is what makes our conference program so valuable. These people know their stuff and are willing to share their expertise. One older farmer said “I sure wish I had had access to this kind of expertise when I got started. I’d have gotten a lot further a lot faster!”
Presenters Here
62 Educational Sessions
The general conference, running all day Friday and Saturday, offers more choices: 62, 1½-hour sessions on a broad range of topics for start-up and seasoned producers alike. Sessions include; sustainable and organic production and marketing information for commercial horticultural and livestock producers, enterprise management lessons, farm policy education and community food systems development information.
Registration and Fee Waivers
The Southern SAWG conference is always a great bargain, given the quality of the information to be gained and the networking opportunities that come with such a large turnout of the South’s most innovative and successful producers, organizers and advocates in sustainable agriculture. Your farming operation or local foods organization can’t afford to miss this event.
This year we have three options for those looking for a fee waiver to participate in this conference.
Fee Waivers here
Be a 2012 Conference Sponsor
Your presence as a sponsor will help hundreds of farmers, community food advocates, educators and researchers across the South, and with the visibility this event affords, it will distinguish you as a supporter of the sustainable agriculture movement.
Note to organizational and institutional leaders: We can provide letters of support to your potential funders if you are seeking funds for producers in your area to participate in the pre-conference and conference activities. Just contact us with the details.
Keep up with Southern SAWG through Facebook and Twitter. Show your support for Southern SAWG by liking and following us!
A few years ago, I was watching a Charlie Rose interview with the musician, Tori Amos. She was going on tour with Alanis Morrisette and Charlie asked her how that worked, how could they combine their shows. Tori frowned in concentration and said (I’m sort of paraphrasing here):
it’s not really about merging them. Really, I’m… a pirate ship. I have a captain, I have my own mates, my own wenches…..and so does she…
That comment stuck in my mind. When I went to work the next day, I shared it Richard McCarthy, who was then the Executive Director of Market Umbrella. We were constantly searching for metaphors for farmers market organizing to describe the way it was bending (or could be) to becoming a true movement rather than a series of random events in towns and cities. We had collected some cool descriptions, still wondered if we had yet found the best way to describe it.
“A pirate ship. Hmmm,” he said. True to his nature as a leader who employs engaging and system-level thinking, he kept at it, coming up with a powerpoint on the pirate ship idea that he continues to refine and use in his global work with civic and food organizers.
When I’m out in the field, I find that much of what we do in markets and in food systems is duplication of the worst sort, meaning unnecessary and a time waster for overworked markets or networks, or just as bad is the an expectation that all markets or projects should operate and be measured the exact same way. Why is that, I often wondered? Why don’t markets or organizers talk more to each other, sharing more tools peer-to-peer and find the strength to resist being measured and judged by inappropriate metrics?
Well, I do know why it happens. It happens because the work of community organizing is so important to do correctly and yet so unrelenting that it is hard to find time to share. And then what should be shared and how it could be shared is often as complicated.
The Tori Amos interview spoke to that idea.
The idea that innovation and creativity is handmade and often an individual exercise, or coming from a small committed group who are learning as they go.
And that sharing is not necessarily about combining efforts, but more often about connecting when needed and not overemphasizing one set of values over another.
That individuals or small groups need some autonomy and yet, in order to build a movement there are times when building the networks is as important.
So from that Amos interview came this line that Richard and I created while standing outside of a coffeehouse:
Sail Alone, Anchor Together
Like pirate ships or if you prefer, privateer ships, markets have their own flag, their own code and their own mates. Sooner or later though, they may need to join up in order to defend themselves from other forces or come together to succeed on an issue.
How they do that is important. When they do that is important too.
The lack of a national or even a regional convening primarily for farmers markets may be starting to hamper our efforts for long term policy changes and impair capacity building. In lieu of that, we can (and should) moor our nimble little ships to sides of elegant liner like a re-imagined public markets conference or join a strong armada such as a well-organized school food initiative when we can, but even then, when we don’t know what to share and when, it’s hard to contribute meaningfully.
We also have our own issues to talk about. What about SNAP/EBT? Disaster planning for market farmers? Training for market managers? Food safety issues? Permanent locations? Sustainable funding? Building appropriate networks for policy work? Evaluation? We need to work this stuff out together and decide how it’s appropriate to our scale.
Some market networks are lucky. They have solid food systems that they work in and grow in sustainably. But even the best need to anchor with the odd little markets and share and hear because innovation within a field often comes from unlikely sources.
And sometimes it’s as hard to get the larger, more established markets to take the time and find the right voice in which to share their ideas and plans, to do that even as they are piloting ever more complex projects.
Respect to each pirate ship must be paid by the others. Learn to spot the flags and to find ways to anchor together.
About every two years, Projects for Public Spaces hosts a dynamic public market conference that draws a wide selection of market organizers, researchers and municipal officials. This time, this it’s being hosted by my other home town of Cleveland, Ohio. The city worked hard to get the conference to showcase their 100-year-old market West Side Market AND its vibrant alternative food system. If you haven’t been to what USED to be called “the mistake on the lake” ever or recently, you would be amazed at some of the changes around town. Those of us who have done community organizing there shouldn’t be: the long tradition of neighborhood and issue organizing on issues like housing, utility reform and brownfields has been expanded to excellent food campaigns.
I can’t wait to see my colleagues, to hear about what they are up to and to see more of the Northeast Ohio food and farming system. If you haven’t checked out PPS’ website and excellent work to support public space and markets role in them, please take the time.
Enterprising activists grafting fruit on to public landscaping:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-guerrilla-grafters-20120912,0,7511481.story
Olive and grape growers have used this technique for thousands of years. Now, farmers are expanding this approach for “tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelons, cantaloupes, winter squash, olives, garbanzos, apricots, apples, various grains, and potatoes” – all crops that are successfully dry farmed in California. For example, apples were traditionally dry farmed in western Sonoma County. While the fruit size was smaller, the yields were good and most of the fruit went for processing where size is unimportant. There are probably many more such examples.
From the article: Dry farming is not a yield maximization strategy; rather it allows nature to dictate the true sustainability of agricultural production in a region. David Little, a Sonoma vegetable grower who says he at times gets only a quarter of the yield of his competitors, describes dry farming as “a soil tillage technique, the art of working the soil; starting as early as possible when there is a lot of moisture in the soil, working the ground, creating a sponge-like environment so that the water comes from down below, up into the sponge. You press it down with a roller or some other implement to seal the top…so the water can’t evaporate and escape out.”
See the case studies section in the article for some examples of growers that dry farm such crops in California.
August 14, 2012
The Farmers Market Coalition (FMC), a national nonprofit organization incorporated in 2006, is proud to announce that Jennifer O’Brien will serve as Interim Executive Director Through January 7th, 2013. Jen will build on the successful four-year tenure of FMC’s outgoing Executive Director, Stacy Miller. She will help guide the FMC through a leadership transition, while continuing to carry out its mission of strengthening farmers markets across the country for the mutual benefit of farmers, consumers, and communities.
O’Brien is a lifelong farmers market patron and volunteer, who has integrated a passion for food policy into her work in communications and planning. While with AECOM, an urban planning and landscape architecture firm outside of Washington, DC, O’Brien worked with the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and numerous nonprofit and private organizations to create civic meeting spaces, preserve natural areas, and design parks and gardens all over the US. Specializing in communication design and outreach, she worked closely with community stakeholders to research and distill data, build consensus, create educational materials, and craft plans and policies. Throughout these initiatives, O’Brien advocated for the inclusion of farmers markets, and publicized their many benefits.
“The ultimate goal of urban planning is to improve the social, environmental and economic health of our communities. While there are thousands of wonderful programs working to better our cities and neighborhoods, I am most impressed with the comprehensive and direct impact that a farmers market can have on its region.” says Interim Executive Director Jen O’Brien.
O’Brien holds a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia, where she concentrated in sustainable food systems. O’Brien has partnered with local and national organizations to write reports on agricultural policies and practices, regional food distribution methods, federal farming initiatives, and sustainable food production. Some of her research included working with the Philadelphia Food Trust to collect data on EBT usage at farmers markets across the country, assessing the food security of coal mining towns in Southwest Virginia, and test piloting a comprehensive food policy audit.
O’Brien’s projects have received numerous awards, including ICLEI’s Sustainable Leadership Award for Outreach Innovation, and a Downtown DC Business Improvement District Momentum Award. Her research on food policy auditing has been published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD).
“FMC’s leadership in advocacy, data collection, networking, and outreach give market managers, vendors and patrons the tools to capitalize on the strengths of their markets, as well as identify and act upon opportunities for growth. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to join in this exciting effort, and will work closely with the board members, staff, and partners to provide the highest level of service to the farmers market community.”
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The Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to strengthening farmers markets for the benefit of farmers, consumers, and communities. For more information about the Farmers Market Coalition, including please visit their website at http://www.farmersmarketcoalition.org.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 