Communities of Practice
The opening plenary was in part a workshop that highlighted a framework that is being practiced in Iowa to address food system challenges at the local and regional level. Seed funding from The Leopold Center helps attract other funding. Members have organized themselves into working groups around issues that are important to them. These include Regional Food Systems and Pork Niche Market, just to give an idea of how general or specific they might be.
The model is one of collaboration and synergy, and echoes some of the organizational techniques of the Cleveland model I posted about earlier. They also started with a series of broad community input sessions, and later broke out into the interest groups that formed from those discussions. These are continually expanding their reach by bringing in more partners, and by building on work that is already being done, rather than duplicating efforts.
CFSC Annual Meeting
This hour-long meeting reported on the business of the coalition, and sought input from members. The biggest desire that was voiced was the ability to connect regionally with other coalition members.
Economic Development Committee
I attended the annual meeting of the Economic Development committee, which began informally in 2006 and is beginning the process of formalizing into a funded working group within the coalition. It is led by Ken Meter, whose Crossroads Resource Center provides consulting and leadership in using local food growing, processing, and distribution as an engine of local economic development. I have signed up to work on this.
Workshops
I attended two workshops in the afternoon: Farm Business Incubation in City Neighborhoods, and A Sense of Place, about a Grand Rapids program that uses yard gardening as a means of building community strength and resilience. This could be a model for some San Antonio neighborhoods that technically are food deserts, but have home gardening as an established practice.
More later on both of these workshops.
