Click here to download the JULY 2008 Work Team Bulletin
Work Team Contacts
Heidi Mouillesseaux-Kunzman, Cornell Community and Rural Development Institute, 607-255-0417 or hmm1@cornell.edu.
Martha Goodsell, Farmer, Fallow Hollow Deer Farm, 607-659-4635 or deerfarm6@frontiernet.net
Results from SWOT analysis posted!
In May, we asked you to articulate challenges and opportunities related to local food markets in NYS through answers to our survey. We received over 100 responses! Thank you! (Click here to download the questions we asked) .
We have compiled and organized the information we receive and are using the analysis as a starting point for working with local food stakeholder representatives to identify strategies and persons/parties best positioned to implement them. We are bringing these parties together for a Local Foods Summit, to be held July 17th, at the White Eagle Conference Center, Hamilton, NY.
Survey Results: Brief Summary (WORD 4 pg)
Survey Results: Complete (WORD 57 pg)
The Opportunity
New York’s small farmers seek new and diversified markets for their products. They are particularly interested in direct retail markets and scale-appropriate wholesale opportunities. At the same time, consumers demand and are increasingly going out of their way for local food. The growing number of small farms directly marketing to consumers through farmers’ markets, roadside stands, CSAs, U-Pick operations, and indirectly through NY retail markets, schools/colleges, and food security programs reflects this growing demand for fresh, healthful, local foods. With the close proximity between NY’s small farms and concentrated customer bases, the increased demand for local foods represents a significant potential market opportunity, not just for small farms but for all of New York’s farms.
A summer 2007 statewide inventory identified over 300 programs and projects designed to promote local/regional foods marketing, including “buy local” campaigns, farm-to-institution programs, and cooperative marketing activities. These programs are being initiated by Cornell Cooperative Extension Associations, local governments and non-profit organizations. Increasingly, economic development and planning agencies, and other community development organizations, are working at the local and regional community level to strengthen connections between producers and consumers. As their mission statements and outreach materials reflect, these agencies and organizations are committed to strengthening these connections to enhance farm profits and provide consumers with access to healthy foods, as well as to capitalize on social, ecological, and economic benefits these valued local resources contribute to overall community and economic development.
Despite having shared goals and similar methods for achieving these goals, few local foods market development efforts have been coordinated across multi-county regions. Small farmers, food processors, farm service providers, agriculture development specialists, community and economic developers, and local legislators agree that local food markets in NY could be enhanced through multi-county regional and statewide strategic planning. The NY Small Farms Work Team on Local Markets was organized in the summer and fall of 2007 to address this opportunity.
Work Team Goals
The Work Team will bring together established agencies and organizations, which are already working to strengthen producer-consumer food retail and wholesale connections, to:
Work Team Members
Core Group
Martha Goodsell, Farmer, Fallow Hollow Deer Farm
Heidi Mouillesseaux-Kunzman, Community Development Coordinator, Community and Rural Development Institute
Andy Turner, Executive Director, Greene County CCE
Mary Jeanne Packer, Executive Director, NY Farms!
Todd Schmit, Assistant Professor, Cornell Dept. of Applied Economics and Management
Team Members
Diane Eggert, Farmer and Executive Director Farmers’ Market Federation of New York
Duncan Hilchey, Agriculture Dev. Spec, Community and Rural Development Institute
Monika Roth, Agriculture Development Specialist, Tompkins County, CCE
Tim Pezzolesi, Department of Agriculture and Markets, Pride of NY Program
Challey Comers, Farm to Market Manager, Watershed Agricultural Council
Becca Brier-Rosenfield, Agriculture Economic Development Specialist, CCE of Madison County
Activities to date, April, 2008
The focus of the Work Team on Local Markets has, thus far, been on planning. The Core Group (leadership team) was recruited in the fall, and has met through several conference calls and email correspondence to plan a process for engaging stakeholders in identifying challenges, opportunities and strategies for enhancing consumer-producer connections.
The team has also established a listserv that will be used to facilitate communication among work team participants – those engaged in the needs and strategy identification process.
Upcoming activities
The Team is planning a stakeholder engagement process that will (1) ask producers, consumers/users, processors, and distributors that use local food markets to identify opportunities and challenges to doing so and (2) use this information as a starting point for identifying strategies for addressing challenges and capitalizing on opportunities during a local markets summit. The summit will bring together key leaders of state and regional organizations with an interest in local food markets. Participants will work together to identify strategies for enhancing local markets. This information will be summarized and then shared at the local level, within regions, for the purpose of adding to and refining ideas shared during the summit with as broad a base of input as possible. Information gleaned through all of these venues will then be summarized and presented in a white paper that will be distributed to participants and policy makers.
