Strengths / Assets in the Triad

• Incredible demand for local food
• Urban areas surrounded by agricultural land
• A lot of farmers who don’t know how to or don’t have access to markets
• All counties have at least 1 farmers’ market and many have more than 1
• Numerous educational institutions with technical expertise:
  • Extension Service
  • NCA&T
  • Wake Forest University, particularly medical school & public health sciences
  • UNC-G
  • Community Colleges – Forsythe Tech and others
• Numerous educational institutions who could be markets for local products
  • Guilford – dining services; made a commitment to buy local
• Small Business Technology Centers – opportunities for help with business planning
• Foster Caviness—major produce distributor in the state is located at Piedmont State-Run Farmers Market.
• Vibrant & growing restaurant scene
• Faith-based populations, such as Moravian Church
• Foundations located in the area – Z. Smith, Golden Leaf, etc…
• Hospitals
• Regional transportation experts – Bren McKinney may be able to help with transportation issues to farmers markets.
• Connection to CEFS – this farm to fork process has provided fertile “train the trainer” opportunity that Triad groups/individuals can use to move forward

Challenges / Needs

• Not enough supply/farmers
• Urban and rural communities often seen as rivals when need to think & act together as a region and to develop mutually beneficially relationship
• WIC/EBT/Senior Farmer Market program – redemption locations are not accessible
• Farming culture – aren’t particularly active now but will come forward in response to market development.

Opportunities – Local Action Ideas

• Develop a regional food policy council
  • Debate: should this be regional or county-based?  Advantage of regional is that so many of the issues need to be addressed at the regional level.  Advantage of county is that it has a decision-making body that can act whereas regional level does not.
• Host a TRIAD regional meeting/summit
  • Discussion: opportunity to collaborate with and add onto NCA&T Small Farm Week at A&T; this would be separate day and event but could be done in conjunction week of March 21, 2010. 
  • Point is not to repeat the process that everyone has gone through with CEFS but to develop regional partnerships and bring in new people.  CEFS process helped train this core group and with the help of templates for meetings, etc….can do this on their own now.
  • Time before the meeting should be used to identify needs, gaps and develop partnerships, sponsors, etc…
• Farmers Market Network – pull together the managers & boards of farmers markets to share best practices, learn from each other and figure out how to be complimentary/collaborative.
• Educational activities – initiative activities to teach people how to cook seasonally with local foods, canning and other food prep.  Some of these would be good to do at the regional level.
• CFSA – work with their new staff person located in the Triad; take advantage of this relationship to host educational activities.
• Re-invigorate listserve with CEFS.
• EBT/WIC/Senior Farmers Market program — research how other states are getting so much more money used and redeemed; why is it so low in NC; hard to redeem locations?  Figure out how to improve transportation to markets.
• Stimulus funds – figure out how and organize an effort to tap into these.
• Institutional buying – work with local schools and colleges to increase procurement of local foods

Next Steps / Working Together

Triad Core Mini-Summit Planning Committee established (with others to join) to meet in early June in the late afternoon; Barbara will send around 3 possible dates using email addresses provided.