To have your name added, contact Amber Polk at amber_polk@ncsu.edu.
Notes from the SUMMIT breakout sessions can now be found on the WIT pages linked below.
- F2F Core Team
- Game Plan
- Advisory Committee
- NC Food NETwork: a North Carolina Food System directory
- SUMMIT
- Working Issues
- Communications
- Community Gardens
- Direct Marketing
- Farm to School
- Local Government & Land Use
- New and Transitioning Farmer Support
- Processing & Food Systems Infrastructure
- Public Health & Food Access Disparities
- Retail & Institutional Markets
- Youth and Social Networking
- Formalizing the Initiative: Foundations & Baselines
- Regional Meetings
- How are we defining LOCAL?
- Regional Meetings Overview & Summary
- Triangle Region SUMMIT breakout session notes
- Mountain Region SUMMIT breakout session
- NorthEast Region SUMMIT breakout session notes
- Southeastern Region SUMMIT breakout session notes
- Triad Region SUMMIT breakout session notes
- Raleigh meeting
- Burgaw meeting
- Asheville
- Charlotte/Concord
- Winston-Salem
- Greenville
Golden Leaf Foundation
Z. Smith Reynolds
Ag Advancement Consortium
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
- CEFS
- Contact Information Form
- NC Choices
- NC Food Network
- Wayne Food Initiative
Triangle Region SUMMIT breakout session notes
Strengths/Assets
- Market
- Location
- Strongest Ag climate in USA
- Support of state governor
- Talent present today! Different sectors
- Enthusiastic & educated consumers
- Proximity to farms and leaders
- Area diversity
- State based orgs
- Experienced & successful farmers
- Farmers acting as role models
- Networking opportunities
- Farm tours and programs
- Higher education acting as advocates
- Food coops
- Food bank and IFS, Society of St. Andres
- Creative & opportunistic land trust
Challenges/Needs
- Cost of land
- Development pressure
- Policy barriers
- Absence of coordination and collaboration
- Rural areas lack comparable enthusiasm
- Overcoming knowledge gap
- Transportation- access
- More farmers needed
- Connecting successful farmers to new ones
- Redefining farm to include public
- More incubation opportunities
- Permanent and accessible farmers markets- indoor
- Access to community kitchen for all
- State based arts
Opportunities- Local Action Idea
- Incorporating farm-school and school-farm curriculum (Liz_driscoll@ncsu.edu & Spencer Dickinson- Spencetm@aol.com)
- Preserving office of environmental ed
- Regional Farm Link Program (ncffn.org)
- Build on existing farmers markets
- Building relationships with communities- all encompassing
- Connecting with other movements
- Educated talking points
- Creating permanent indoor market houses in walkabout locations- Betsy Megalos
- Marketing campaign (Courtney Tellefsen- 604.1688)
- Incorporating TROSA- Susan O’Neill 919.932.4398
- School & library gardens- educating location (liz_driscoll@ncsu.edu)
- Veggie Bus- Mobile Market (Camille Sampino FVMMcamille@yahoo.com)
- Roadside stands- emphasizing rural connectivity
- Comprehensive list of community gardens- Diane Beth and Lucy Bradley- will send out through CEFS listserv
- Educating local officials about public land use for community gardens- SpenceTM@aol.com
Next Steps
- Triangle Area Strategic Plan (Debbie Roos, Diane Beth, SpenceTM@aol.com)
- Inventory of personal and community ‘next steps’ and events (Rachel Smith Rachel.g.smith@ncdenr.gov, 919.733,0711- office of env. Ed calendar- eenorthcarolina.org)
- Asset Mapping
- Yahoo group/online forum- use NCSU majordomo- Debbie Roos can create if needed, or if we feel we have too man list can do it web based like WIT groups- Tes can help? Courtney Tellefsen- the produce box- 604.1688
- Bridging the gap between low income and healthy foods- business plan
- Helping health-risk populations- Camille Sampino- Frmmcamille@yahoo.com (or FVmmcamille@yahoo.com)- 596.9898
- Regional areas within CEFS website
- Trianglefoodcommons@ning.com
- Connect with faith-based orgs- Lisa Tolley- lisa.tolley@ncdenr.gov
Table Top Strengths
- High demand for local/sust. Food including LEED certification
- Debbie Roos
- Over 250 farms, farmers markets, and CSA’s
- Educated and affluent market
- Support organizations
- Debbie Roos, Noah Ramiles, Mike Lanier
- Talent/organizations/groups
- Farms and farmlands somewhat available
- Urban populations/proximity to farmers markets
- Climate growing season
- NC State, A&T, UNC, research
- CCCC- sustainable ag program
- Experienced successful farmers serving as role models
- Farmers markets galore
- Co-ops national models
- CSA’s
- Farm tours
- Conferences & workshops
- Mini mobile markets at worksites
- Restaurants that promote local food
- Promotional efforts- eat local month film festival
- Lots of groceries sell organic/local
- Good farmers markets
- Chefs using local products
- Clientele in urban areas pay for loc/org
- Lots of passionate people doing great work
- Motivated consumers
- People with money
- Access to politicians (statewide)
- Great extension agents like Debbie Roos
- Research institutions and state based institutions
- # of farmers markets/coop markets/great restaurants who buy local
- Size & popularity of farmers markets in triangle
- Historic preservation walk
- Faith community involvement
- Schools & universities & research & teaching- smart people
- Lots of restaurants featuring local foods
- New farmers markets
- Accessibility of urban markets to rural producers
- Close to governor & legislature
- Value added to processing center in orange county
- Extension is moving in a good direction- so much potential
- Piedmont bio fuels
- Farmers & farmers markets- presence
- Farmer advocacy organizations
- Growing consumer awareness and demand
- Innovative distribution channels emerging
- Support of state governor
- Diversity of stakeholders collaborating
- Diversity of products/resources/client
- University system
- Health and human services
- Food banks
- Voracious market, easy access
- Already have lots of grass fed beef
- Universities as a resource
- Large population of institutionalized individuals that are a potential market
- Strong interest in community gardening
- A lot of interest
- Increase in school gardening
- Interest from faith based community
- Committed audience/market diversity, Non NC Natives
- Large # of people who want to serve
- Agnomic studies, opportunities, resources
- Farmland protection programs, planning land use
- Sustainable agricultural program of CCCC
- Land trust (TLC)
- Crop Mob (young farmers
- Growing interest in youth gardening and farm to school
Table Top Challenges/Weaknesses
- Cost as barrier
- Affordable land, credit
- Infrastructure
- Regulations setting barrier between consumer and farmer
- Not enough farmers
- No local slaughterhouse for grass-fed beef
- Development
- Loss of farm land, fragmentation
- Getting new farmers
- Cost of land
- Need to educate urban electorate and public
- Convenience
- How to work together but not overlap
- Durham has no ag extension
- Difficult to know who to go to- need directory
- How to act as an industry without losing non industry folks
- How to work collectively to be able to lobby
- Figuring out how to reach various groups
- Need coop in Raleigh
- Growth of market
- Lack of education
- Organic farms
- Not aware of everything going on, what government is doing, or what universities are doing
- Large diversity of attendance, new types of markets, times and locations
- Connecting to food justice issues- restoring markets
- Stronger connection between local foods and hunger relief- access and affordability
- Bringing local foods into the schools
- Lacking appropriate infrastructure
- Need more collaboration
- Networking people who want to garden and those who have land
- Populations not represented at this conference and in organization meetings
- Students could have more opportunities to engage
- Need to educate government employees and older generation at why we need to move in this direction
- Educate our politicians
- State farmers market wont feature local or organic- its pretty backward looking
- We need more farmers
- Need for education about cooking and eating seasonally
- Extension needs to focus more on sustainable
- Access to affordable land
- Sprawl and rapid development
- Develop a coherent, cohesive plan
- Keeping together on education
- Funding to support the work
- Food still a non issue for 90% of populace
- Education, education, education
- Processing and distribution; greater accessibility
- Regulatory and policy barriers
- Insurance
- Awareness/support of state/national legislators
- Lack of knowledge about value, nutrition, preparation, organic
- Location and schedule constraints
- Population is decreasing available farmland
- Lacking infrastructure & processing
- Processing competition
- Perception of public, education, accept less than perfect looking good, create demand
- Restrictive demands- regulations/standards
- Available, affordable farm land
- Community methane bathroom- challenge in getting approved
- Support for struggling farmers
- General knowledge & interest in farming
- Food coop near Raleigh
- #’s are too large, communication
- NCSU dining system slower than UNC CH and Duke
- K-12 system
- Not a lot of technical extension support for community gardens
- Continue working on community garden list
Table Top Local Action Ideas & opportunities
- Include A6 in regional growth plans
- Community gardens
- Local foods subset for a further organization and leverage for organizations
- Finding ways around budgeting problems
- Developing local ideas list for community builders
- Land now and for future generations
- Fraudulent use of the word ‘local’ we need to address- piedmont grown or triangle grown
- Campaign to get consumers to approach their grocery stores and ask about their local foods
- Education- change values and perceptions of consumers
- Asset mapping
- Permanent market house- Betty Megalos
- Action plan for the triangle
- Umbrella org for farmers markets
- Incentives for farmland preservation
- Scale appropriate regulations
- 10% local
- Grass-fed beef and local products in schools
- Community gardens on county land
- Education- incorporating food into curriculum
- Waste to wealth
- Reduce horticulture size
- Limit to 2 acres
- Connecting restaurant people who use local ingredients
- Connecting people who cook in their homes with local ingredients
- Confronting social justice/racial issues that are in this field
- Relationship building, strengthening communities
- Farmland protection petition for Durham NOW
- Regional farm link resource- linking people who want to farm with available land- maybe through NC Farm transition network
- Research into local farm impact- to use for lobbing and education campaigns
- Save the office of environmental education
- Working with agricultural community to get more on board with sustainability
- Monthly breakfast
- Neighborhood coops/buying clubs
- NC State set up program for students with ag, etc to work with community groups
- Scholarship program for low income people to buy at coops- coops could accept food stamps
- Leadership program for minority and low wealth populations to promote local foods that are affordable
- TROSA, SEEDS, One Durham, Everybody eats
- Central place for all information
- Identify all foundations who support local food
- Educating future food system leaders- students matched with community groups
- Youth food corps- set aside % of places for minority and low wealth folks
- Find out about community garden space at libraries- how get it and create it
- Get information to school parents thru PTA
- Develop model fundraiser based on CSA or other distribution models: produce box, papa spuds
- Growth of market
- Map of farms
- Get other counties to merge
- Direct contact & farmers
- Public transportation
- Language
- Triangle growth
- Lack of education
- Legislative advocacy- prepare talking points
- Interview governor & select legislators- write an article
- Community kitchen
- Engage the community of artists (musicians, visual arts, etc.) in this movement
- Local foods subset for A
- Further organize and leverage organizations like seeds and crop mob
- Finding ways around budgeting problems
- Developing a local idea list for community building events
- Land for now and for future generations
- List of vacant spaces for farms/gardens and working with local government to have access to these lands