Join a diverse group of individuals for further conversations and planning on ways to scale up resources for resilient food systems in the Driftless Region.  If you were at our meeting in January, continue your participation.  If you missed us the first time around, please bring your wisdom, contacts, and expertise to the table and help us capitalize on the Driftless Region’s many assets.

We hope to cast the net as widely as possible.  Please forward this invitation to those you think should join us. Details on the event are below.

The tentative agenda includes updates from representatives of organizations from throughout the region, including SE MN Regional Partnerships, the Driftless Area Initiative, Riverlands Partnership, Northeast Iowa Food and Farm Coalition, and the Valley Stewardship Network.

We are also planning brainstorming sessions on grassfed beef, dairy/artisanal cheese, emerging crops, organic vegetables, fruit, and poultry.  If you know farmers planning to expand their efforts in these areas, please bring them along.

In the weeks since our first meeting, we have collected and summarized the many ideas we generated together.  We also have created a blog to serve as a temporary home for our efforts.  We will email more information on those topics soon.

In the meantime, please let us know if you would like to help us formulate the March 18 agenda or you have any questions or suggestions.

Many thanks,
The UW-Madison CIAS Driftless Team