Ever wonder what Ontario is up to?

Our neighbors to the north (and southeast) are actively engaged in the local / regional food movement. Ontario Fresh is a web community for growers and wholesale buyers to find each other. I’ve met Wisconsin distributors who regularly buy “glass house” peppers from Ontario farmers and know that their provincial department of agriculture is very much engaged in planning for increased horticultural production. Ontario gets a lake effect, too!

Driftless regional food policy council?

I posted a question on regional food systems to LinkedIn, and a respondent suggested I take a look at what they are doing in Puget Sound. What do you think? Would a Driftless Region food policy council make sense?

http://psrc.org/about/advisory/regional-food-policy-council

Another respondent shared what they are doing in Ontario. There is a nonprofit who organized its members to attend food shows in major markets. The equivalent would be to purchase some floor exhibition space at the Fancy Food Show in Chicago for Driftless purveyors. Ditto Twin Cities, Milwaukee, etc.. What do you think of that?

Good Food Network webinar this Thursday

This month’s  National Good Food Network webinar is on “Accelerating Learning and Increasing Commerce” with Karen Lehman from Chicago’s Fresh Taste, Corry Bregendahl from Iowa’s Leopold Center and two food systems experts from Michigan, Rich Pirog and Marty Gerencer.

Thursday, September 20th, 2:30-4pm.

Next month’s webinar is on food access, October 18th.

To pre-register to http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f6e853d37c1ed4db967a79125&id=5e256b0e7b&e=d383c0d70a.

Tip: The Wallace Institute is soliciting resumes of people actively changing our food system. Check out the sidebar on the website linked above.

Conference on regional economic cluster development

Free event september 25th in Minneapolis: Regional Innovation Clusters and Economic Competitiveness

The Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul region and the Minnesota economy have benefited historically from competitive industries and innovative business, academic, and policy leadership.  This success is manifest through a concentration of corporate headquarters and innovation clusters in a range of industries – medical devices, life sciences, food, publishing, retailing, information technology, finance, insurance, and the arts, among others.

This forum will feature presentations and lessons learned from regional innovation cluster initiatives in Minnesota, Oregon, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Puebla, Mexico, and will explore job and economic development strategies through state, local, and educational policies.

 

Want to sell wholesale?

Looking for a buyer? The Local Food Expo has a couple of display areas for you at its meeting next Tuesday, September 18. Hosted by the Institutional Food Marketing Coalition, this event brings buyers and sellers together to swap business cards and learn about their mutual interests and concerns around wholesaling food grown in our region. They are especially interested in meat and cheese vendors. To register for the meeting. reserve a display table or learn more, go to www.ifmwi.org. Register now!

WANTED: a nuanced Driftless narrative

“Authenticity is a rare and valuable commodity, and people will travel far to find it,”writes editor-at-large Bobby Ghosh in Time’s Fall 2012 issue of Style and Design. And authenticity is about integrity. What does this tell us about developing a narrative for the Driftless that shelters the region’s integrity while inviting people into the region to taste of its bounty? Ghosh goes on to say, “When everyone wants a piece of paradise, can paradise stay intact?”

Need legal?

A colleague of many of ours at CIAS – Rachel Armstrong -  finished law school and set up a legal consultancy business, targeted at farmers. Farm Commons blog has some information that may be useful to you as you start or revamp your business.

For all you CSAers, Rachel is conducting a webinar on December 10th about the legal issues in running a CSA farm. The webinar will emphasize structuring volunteer programs in particular- unpaid interns, worker shares, or casual volunteers- while covering business legal issues in general for the CSA farm.