Linking Farmers and Consumers: Lessons and Opportunities

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Linking Farmers and Consumers Lessons and
Opportunities

• Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D.
• Food Circles Networking Project

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Community food systems are in the news.
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Food System Trends
From Saveur Magazine, August 2004
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These alternative food systems are really about .

• Tasty, healthy food
• Consumers are looking for differentiated foods
  e.g. natural, organic, humanely raised, no
  antibiotics, family farm raised, fair labor
  practices
• Relationships
• Food that you buy from your friends and neighbors
  to support their businesses and your communitys
  development
• Fun!

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Farmer opportunities?
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For farmers, food entrepreneurs and communities

• Dont create a capital-intensive,
  profit-above-all-else, impersonal system that
  produces for the masses
• Lots of temptations to do just that!
• Markets will demand more and more product LABELED
  as organic, humane, natural, free-range, no
  antibiotics, cage-free .
• Supply them or else.Wal-Mart Organic?
• Potential to get squashed like a bug
• Quality can suffer
• 3 Ms (money, management and marketing) will be in
  short supply

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But plenty of opportunities to

• Develop new visions of what the food and farming
  system can be
• What are the principles that we want to
  incorporate?
• There are many models ranging from micro to
  international trade
• Celebrate uniqueness and diversity in the food
  system
• This is an asset not a liability!
• The taste of place is becoming more and more
  important
• Put people first on the farm, in the plant and
  in the community
• Make food systems local/regional not global
• Community Self-Reliance

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Farmers
Chefs
Grocery Stores
Processors
Educators
Nutritionists
Eaters
Food Circle
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This kind of food system is based on
relationships between people, within their
community, and within their ecosystem.
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Community food systems take

• Knowledge
• how to grow, process, market, distribute and cook
  food that is connected to people in a particular
  place and time
• Infrastructure
• Rebuild and create
• This includes everything from land, equipment,
  trucks, storage, and retail spaces to
  regulations, policies and education

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Components of community food systems

• Getting food from farm gate to the eaters plate
• Production
• Processing
• Distribution
• Market outlets

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New Production Methods

• Hoop houses or high tunnels
• Allow farmers to get early or late crops, winter
  greens

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Alternative Production Methods

• Intensive Rotational Grazing for dairy and beef
• Increases CLA content
• Lower fat and cholesterol
• Used for lots of animals
• Sheep
• Goats
• Pastured Poultry complements

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Farmers Markets

• Sweeping across the Midwest

Websites for finding farmers markets www.localhar
vest.org www.sustainabletable.org www.foodroutes.o
rg
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Linking Chefs Farmers
Main Squeeze Vegetarian Restaurant
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New value chains

• Create values-based value chains
• Share the risks and benefits of producing and
  consuming food throughout the supply chain
• Focus on partnerships
• Examples
• Oregon Country Beef/Burger Chain New Seasons
• Red Tomato and Federation of Southern
  Cooperatives
• Good Natured Family Farms and Hen House

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New Business Models

• Hen House
• a grocery store in Kansas City, uses fresh local
  products to differentiate themselves from other
  stores sales of locally grown increasing 35 a
  year
• Almost 7 million in locally grown sales in 2006

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Farm to Cafeteria

• What if the food served in our schools came from
  a sustainable food system?
• www.farmtoschool.org
• What if food in our hospitals and nursing homes
  came from our local food systems?
• www.grownlocally.com
• Kaiser Permanente system

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Community Gardening
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Eater knowledge
How do you purchase, store, cook these kind of
things for maxim taste and nutritional value?
How do you find the time?
Images from Fair Share Farm, and Google Image
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Our Responsibilities

• Good, clean and fair food is going to take
  cooperation
• Farmers see other farmers as cooperators and not
  competitors TOGA, Niman, Organic Valley/Organic
  Prairie
• Eaters see themselves as more than consumers as
  community members, as citizens, as workers, as
  participants
• Concern ourselves with structure (what kind of
  relationships are we creating?) rather than scale
  (how big is too big?)

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What do we get?

• Better Nutrition Increased consumption of
  nutrient dense foods coupled with a decrease in
  nutrition-related diseases like diabetes and
  obesity
• Improved Local Economy Increased number of
  viable farms, processors and stores contributing
  to the local economy
• Self-reliant, Food-Secure Community Decreased
  number of people needing emergency food
  provisions and increased consumption of local
  foods in all parts of the community.