NC Growing Together and NC Cooperative Extension Work Together to Promote Local Foods
June 2014 – NC Growing Together (NCGT) and NC Cooperative Extension (NCCE) are working together to promote local foods in North Carolina. Cooperative Extension is based out of North Carolina’s two land-grant universities – NC State University and NC Agricultural and Technical State University – and works in all 100 North Carolina counties and with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In 2012, NCCE designated local foods as one of their flagship programs.
“Cooperative Extension was already doing great local foods work
[when NCGT started up]. The first year [of NCGT] really focused on supporting existing Extension activities that address NCGT project outcomes,” explains Joanna Lelekacs, NC Growing Together’s Extension and Training Coordinator and the NC Cooperative Extension Coordinator for Local Foods. “We have been working with county Extension offices to connect producers to buyers,” she says. “Initializing and building relationships [with buyers] can be one of the biggest challenges that producers face.”
Growers meet with potential buyers at an NCGT-sponsored event.
Working together, NCGT and NCCE have organized several “Round the Table” and “Meet the Buyer” meetings across the state. The meetings serve an important role in connecting producers who are interested in selling into larger markets with retail and other buyers who are interested in purchasing from local producers.
An important topic at the meetings is GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certification, a food safety certification that is required by many retail and food service buyers. NCGT partners with NCCE and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association to deliver GAPs certification training and one-on-one support to growers who must certify their farms in order nbso online casino reviews to sell into larger markets.
Other meeting topics include buyer produce specifications and liability insurance requirements, the importance of frequent communications between farmer and buyer, and information on what products are most popular from a consumer perspective. NCGT is evaluating these efforts in order to institutionalize the networking processes that work best so that buyers and farmers continue to connect beyond the life of the project. NCGT is also supporting these supply chain connections with information exchange, resource development, and training.
NCGT partner Lowes Foods has made many successful connections at the meetings. “Our partnership with CEFS and NC Growing Together has helped us facilitate a consistent channel in reaching out to producers of all sizes across our state. The effort has shown an immediate impact not only in our local offerings but also in being able to really support those families and individuals who work and shop in the communities in which we operate,” says Richard McKellogg, Produce Director for Lowes Foods.
A Lowes Foods display highlighting local produce and other offerings.
Recognizing the vital role that Extension Agents play in connecting producers and buyers in their communities, NCGT provides training and capacity-building in local foods issues for Extension agents who work in the field. At the annual Extension conference in November 2013, NCGT helped facilitate three sessions with a focus on local foods.
The three presentations, Marketing Opportunities through Season Extension, Local Food Systems Programming: Engaging all Extension Program Areas and Community Resources in a Systems Approach, and The Role of Extension in Enhancing Access to Local Foods had a combined attendance of over 162 Extension Agents.
Kellyn Montgomery, the Local Foods Extension Agent for Catawba County, attended one of the sessions. “The demand for local food is very clear in my community, and being able to support the local food system with quality, research-based information and resources is my main responsibility as an extension agent. The training helped me identify sources for quality, trusted information and methods for sharing this information with producers, restaurateurs, farmers market managers, consumers, and others involved in food businesses in my community,” she said. NCGT is also planning future Extension agent trainings focused on food hubs and other pertinent topics.
NCGT also provides support to three NC “Farm Schools” in the Piedmont, Sandhills, and Foothills regions. Organized by NCCE county agents, the Farm Schools are designed to teach the “business of farming” – including whole farm planning, marketing, record keeping, taxes, and insurance – to new and transitioning farmers. Roughly 50 farms are participating in each program.
Says NCGT Project and Research Coordinator, Rebecca Dunning, ‘”Over the first year of the NCGT project it became apparent to everyone that small and mid-sized farmers, the ones targeted by NCGT, could benefit from business planning. So much of being successful in modern agriculture, especially for smaller diversified farmers, is being able to strategize, to compare costs and returns and move towards different products and different markets. Supporting NCCE”s expansion of Farm Schools across the state was a perfect way to build farmer capacity in this area.”
This article originally appeared in the June/July 2014 NC Growing Together Newsletter.