regional food

Southern SSAWG conference news

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!

SSAWG conference link here

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Sail alone, anchor together

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.

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Letter to a fellow food organizer

a colleague asked me to give her my opinion on trends and jobs in the alternative food system retail sector. Here is the beginning of my response:

Okay,
Here’s a few of my cents as requested:

As you know, the food hub conversation has taken a lot of the oxygen in the room (and a lot of the funding) away from direct farmer support and farmers markets and as a result, it feels like we are simply treading water in a lot of instances. Spread too thin. Certainly in the expansion of direct marketing farming or in getting any serious cross-sector analysis, we’re not jumping ahead much of where we were 5 years ago.

It’s not that I’m against food hubs, but some of them sound a lot like city governments’ “one-stop shops” which I am not sure has worked either. And it smacks of “scaling up” which is a suspect phrase to someone like me who has seen how long it takes a market farmer to really be ready to price at his or her comfort level and to innovate products. The Cliff Notes version of the market vendor lifespan is that it takes years of a market organizations time and “expertise” to patiently get a farmer to an economic and social comfort level where they actually tell you that they are about to go bankrupt or get divorced or get ready for a kid to go to college and so thats why their business is changing so you can help it change for the better. And that those folks are RETAIL vendors, with tables and tents and signs designed to help them sell retail, and not necessarily the same ones to approach or to change to wholesale vendors seems to be missed by some wholesale organizers.

Sometimes, it also feel that we are extrapolating the wrong lessons of what has worked to build food retail points of entry. Let me say I’m probably not “up” on all of the good work being done, although I do know and learn from original thinkers like Anthony Flaccavento’s and M. Shuman’s excellent research and analysis work. It’s just that the a lot of the scaling up and institutional buying conversation seems wildly uneven from case to case and the skills are simply not embedded into the host area to keep the thing moving forward once a founder leaves or a project fails.

What is true in the food system is that currently the public health sector rules, so therefore the conversation around low-income and at-risk end users of healthy food is the main thing being funded, which is a glorious turn around for those who always had the plan to take the food system there (meaning to everyone) no matter what anti-localvore writers try to say.<
10 years ago, the talk was all about social cohesion and dynamic Main Streets and 15 years before THAT, it was all about farmers extending seasons and growing sustainably, and it was always about doing it for everyone.

The public health sector is staying put, and learning more and more about how to use our points of entry to get results in true behavior change. That sector has changed farmers markets more than any other stakeholder (and that includes government stakeholders) because there are so many levels of public health intervention that they are willing to try wild ideas which often work and because they measure everything they do. However, I expect that the needle will move again-what will be the next issue that leads food system work- environmental impacts or immigrant issues or racial inequities or food safety or civic planning? Who knows really. Of course, it will depend on the crisis that shows up.

As for careers and jobs, it is my biased opinion that the open-air farmers market continues to rule the hearts (if not the minds) of most of the public while inside the food system, organizers favor the urban farm as the winning hand. Oddly, no one has brought these two together in any meaningful way or even examined the impacts of the two combined or separately beyond simple economic data or numbers of projects, as if quantity of projects really mean anything.

I think you know my obsession is with measuring the economic, social, human and natural capital of markets AND also with finding a way to make markets the entry point for training food organizers on all aspects of food system work. I foresee a national training program with skills trained in the first 6 months which are transferrable to all parts of the food system and beyond. Along those lines, there is already a push for a voluntary market manager accreditation system (which is beginning in places like Michigan) that might be similar in neighboring states so someone would have a leg up regionally if they have taken the training.
Add to that a yearly networking session for market managers and for those in my mythical training program and you may have the beginning of a movement, instead of rising and falling tide of new markets and projects every year.

And after all, the farmers markets remain the best fulcrum for food systems, so what happens there should matter to everyone else.

What also seems true is in the last 2-3 years the terrain has shifted a great deal, away from larger “big tent” orgs partnering on everything to much more nimble entrepreneurial types sharing knowledge on common problems and tactics. Regionality may once again become the strongest card we can use to strengthen our systems across state lines and across single issue campaigns to truly achieve success. Interestingly, this seems to also true in DC, where there is not one national policy shop office that truly represents the entire membership of most food organizers. Collaboration there has been somewhat successful.
But to leave markets for a minute (hate to do it but I will) I also believe that the wholesale food system is ready for a boost. And no, food hubs so far ain’t cutting it, as far as really reshaping buying habits of purchasers and institutions like the farmers markets HAVE been successful in re shaping the consumer’s buying habits- the 2-3 percent that listen, that is. THAT, of course, is another looming issue-98% of the public who have not used alternative food systems much. And even for the 2-3 percent, what is the actual change-one season? Farmers market shoppers become CSA members or vice versa? What about how they feel about the environment or local businesses after they stick to the market?

So research is needed in examining what is actually been done and not just the PROJECTS, but the efforts of stakeholders, the typology of successful farmers, and the efficient host organizations.
I would also say that as CFSC struggles with it’s post-strategic planning transition (speaking as a Board member for a few more months that assures you that that info is not secret but quite transparent and shared within the CFSC community) and Slow Food reexamines it’s work and searches for a new leader and FMC searches for a new leader, it may turn out all of the national organizations turn more to each other and others to collaborate more closely along with racial equity orgs like GFJI and Alliance for Building Capacity and IATP.

They might. So the collaboration points are a good place to look for work. Chapters? Maybe. Community unionism? Maybe. Or simply skill building and shared measurement in all partnerships. That would help. However, as we strengthen the regional orgs and multi-sector orgs more -since I’m sure im not the only one thinking this way- that may be where the jobs end up too.

In any case or in all cases, what seems clear to be missing in many cases is the entrepreneur’s point of view, whether its a farmer, or a baker or the neighboring business that needs that market or even the market or other food retail organization itself that seem to be considered built already and left out of the capacity building money. (I guess many feel we had our money moment, huh?) So maybe we need more innovative financing too, like CSEs or granny accounts or even to attempt the other part of a currency system-loans and massive fundraising in the market community itself, using the wooden token system as a starting point.
After all, its the entrepreneur is who needs to be encouraged. The entrepreneurs are who need to be analyzed. And entrepreneurs will be multiplying as corporations shut down and lay off more and more, and so seems like the most obvious point of expansion for work opportunities.
So to paraphrase Abigail Adams, …remember the entrepreneurs and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

Hope that helps, Darlene

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Fruits We’ ll Never Taste

My own original Slow Food chapter leader (and emerging radio personality) Poppy Tooker coined the phrase “Eat it To Save It” as a way to link human need for good food to awareness of environmental trends. There is no question that if Americans could see, smell and taste what we have lost just in the 20th century as far as foodstuffs, we would have farmers as senators, mayors and presidents once again.

the book, “Salmon Nation People, Fish, and Our Common Home” is a great example of one region’s attempt to clarify what needs to be saved. Put out by a great regional ngo, Ecotrust, Salmon Nation is worth having in your library.
This article is also a great way to think about “untasteable foods.”

Fruits We' ll Never Taste.

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Another educational food production platform, if nothing else….

When I worked at marketumbrella.org, one of the many projects that I helped design and run was our White Boot Brigade, the roaming shrimper market for added seasonal seafood sales. Rouse’s Supermarkets was an early supporter of the WBB, and we genuinely enjoyed working with this Houma-based family company. Since they gamely took on being the main grocery store chain in our city (when Sav-A-Center decided that post-Katrina New Orleans wasn’t for them), I for one was very happy as I knew them and knew their stores. New Orleanians are VERY picky about their “markets” (as stores are often called) and yet, the Rouse family has mostly met their needs. As for buying locally, they do buy, they do support local entrepreneurs. Farmers have a harder time getting their produce in there, but value-added farmers market vendors seem to be doing well.
They just opened a store a few blocks from the flagship Saturday farmers market in downtown New Orleans, and I think it will help both the market and the store. That store is the subject of this excellent story on their new rooftop garden.

The only supermarket in downtown New Orleans is the first grocery in the country to develop an aeroponic urban farm on its roof.

What exactly is an aeroponic urban garden?

Think vertical instead of horizontal. The garden “towers” use water rather than soil, and allow plants to grow upward instead of outward. It was developed by a former Disney greenhouse manager, and is used at Disney properties, the Chicago O’Hare Airport Eco-Farm and on the Manhattan rooftop of Bell Book & Candle restaurant.

Rouse’s downtown

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Price comparisons at farmers markets: understanding value and affordability

In the February Farmers Market Coalition webinar, farmer and community and economic development specialist Anthony Flaccavento of Rural SCALE, Inc. will discuss his recent price comparisons between farmers markets and grocery stores in six states, and offer advice on how this data can be part of efforts to reinforce markets’ commitment to equity and affordability. Webinar is scheduled for Tuesday February 7, 2012 2:00-3:00 p.m. EST

FMC registration

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Viva Farmers

Viva Farms tries to help new farmers overcome the many technical and financial barriers they face.

“There are five things every start-up farmer needs,” Mrs. Schaffer says. These include education in farm management, access to land, equipment (like tractors) and infrastructure (like irrigation and cold storage), start-up capital, and marketing and distribution support.
Viva Farms

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CFSC Policy newsletter

The best policy newsletter on food policy-and I’m not just saying that because I’m on their board!
It’s really worth a subscription.
CFSC

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Our season of sharing really starts now

For those deep in the market world, the year tends to go in patterns. Starting with workshops and meetings in the winter and early spring, we then gear up for the late spring season at market, then work madly throughout the summer, and end the year writing reports and attending to administrative needs.
Whether the market is year-round or your region has seasonal markets, it makes it hard to find the time to gain or share knowledge past those we see regularly at market.
As we start our workshop/conference season, I for one am looking forward to the Southern SAWG conference in Little Rock, AK. SSAWG functions as a regional entity, working with and through hundreds of associated organizations across 13 southern states. By building partnerships, sharing information and conducting analysis, they transform isolated ideas and innovations into practical tools and approaches for widespread use.

I have presented at past SSAWG conferences and am always energized by the farmer bustle and the very detailed assistance that is available to organizers across the South from this organization. We don’t have many large organizations down here, so we value each one we get!

There is still time to register for SSAWG; the information gained would be useful even if you are not a Southern farmer or food organizer. And if Little Rock is not possible for you to visit this year, at least sign up for their Newsletter.

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A Disciplined Approach to Evaluating Ideas – Scott Anthony – Harvard Business Review

An extremely useful article for the market world. Evaluation techniques should represent what is doable in a particular field while it asks people to stretch their imagination and analytical skills. Stepped evaluation (or as it is called in the article, “Stage-gate process”) for markets really is the best idea. marketumbrella.org’s 4M worksheets use that idea, and I know they have more coming along those lines in 2012…

to see the 4M sheet, go to marketumbrella.org and then log in to the marketshare project. View it under Shares.

A Disciplined Approach to Evaluating Ideas – Scott Anthony – Harvard Business Review.

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extreme weather

This may cross farmers and market organizers minds at times, but in my experience few have prepared for the possibility of having interruption in the food system. Being a New Orleanian, I have personally experienced it twice, with the 2005 levee breaks and then the BP oil spill. Even after restarting the food system twice, we still have no master plan for another crisis, although a few organizations like marketumbrella.org have some systems in place.
If we are having such a difficult time, I can imagine what those regions who have not seen a crisis in the past 30 years have done in preparation! Do they have a back up plan for contacting farmers and producers when the internet and main phones are out? Do they know what their community foundations have planned? Is there any emergency funds built for food system people? Who are the state and regional government leaders they need to know?
Watching the informal sisterhood of food NGOs in Vermont recover from Irene has shown me what collaboration can do within a single political entity. However, I have heard little about what the multi-state approach has been to that same disaster.

Extreme weather is happening in more states and in more ways with the global weather instability that our carbon emissions have brought. What then is YOUR plan in YOUR region? Who are your key players? What is the sequence of events that will unfold if (or can I say) WHEN it happens in your food system?

Top 10 extreme weather events by state

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Let’s retake ugly food too

This report makes a great point about our unease with ugly fruit. I believe that the entire responsibility DOES go to those supermarkets that started to stage light and wax fruit for display. They have lost the ability to lure people in with smells or bursting ripeness. Let me also say that the finger pointing to the consumer in this story as the culprit is unsubstantiated; we have become conditioned based how food has been presented in our lifetime, and it’s up to the farmers markets (once again!) to change that perception with gentle encouragement.
WE can bring back the ugly fruit too, by simply encouraging our farmers to bring “seconds” and then to promote them. Why not ask the farmers to bring a few boxes that are not perfect and do as the Monica family in New Orleans does- label the box “chef special” which, of course brings every serious home cook to peer in the box and then drop their jaw at the lower price.
report

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WWNO: Louisiana Eats 12-28-11: Year In Review

Poppy Tooker is a favorite of every serious (and lighthearted) food organizer in my region – and if you want to get honest about it – those smart ones far beyond her beloved Gumbo Nation.

I could go on and on about her, but let me say this: Food organizers should be so lucky as to have a Poppy Tooker in their midst. She has done many things, including being largely responsible for the speed in which we rebuilt our food system after the federal levee breaks by alternately cheering, cursing and championing those producers (and market managers like myself) that needed to get back up and running, finding us money and support and the words to explain ourselves.
For many years, she has reclaimed food and its dignity in dozens of ways, with unique style and dedication, even while making everyone shake their head with laughter or hide it in fear of her righteous wrath at times too.
All as a VOLUNTEER.
She wrote the glorious Crescent City Farmers Market cookbook and now finds herself a radio star of the first order on the public radio station in New Orleans. Listen to her online now, here, because she is going to be heard a lot more places soon, and you can say, “Oh Poppy? I been listening to her for YEARS..”

WWNO: Louisiana Eats 12-28-11: Year In Review (2011-12-28).

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Sioux City Farmers Market report

An excellent example of a market annual report. Clearly, this market engages lots of partners to help on a regular basis.
I truly believe that the most successful markets have the widest group of community partners assisting them.
Check out how much data they have for the year; each piece of that data will help another partner or a vendor or a market understand it’s function and potential a little better.
Sioux City

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