About the Food and Farming Network
The Northwest Michigan Food and Farming Network is a forum and opportunity for the region’s many food and farming interests to link and advance their work.
The Network came about after leading business and community organizations joined together to plan the Feb. 24, 2008, Farm Route to Prosperity summit (please see Planning Partner list below). The reason for the summit was to help determine how this region’s food and farm interests should follow up on the six-county Grand Vision process.
The 50-year Grand Vision calls for strong farms, healthy people, and abundant, fruitful farmland. The summit was an opportunity to make an action plan for realizing that vision.
Summit Results
A broad cross-section of nearly 100 people and organizations attended the summit. They came from the fields of farming, food service, distribution, processing, government, education, finance, public health, and family and youth services.
At the summit, these leaders agreed they would:
- Work together to measure and achieve one guiding goal: To increase the resilience and double the value of the region’s food and agricultural system in 10 years.
- Make progress toward this goal by connecting activities; that is, form a regional network to keep everyone in touch and on track.
- Use this network to get more people involved and to inform and influence implementation of the Grand Vision.
New Food and Farming Network
The Northwest Michigan Food and Farming Network is now up and running. It is not a new organization but a structure through which many organizations and individuals can make progress together.
The Network is organized around seven working groups that spent time at the Feb. 24 summit thinking about priority strategies for achieving the regional goal and related objectives. These working groups form a regional council that will guide the Network and decide how to measure and monitor progress.
Working group chairs are now in the process of contacting people who might want to participate actively. Please sign up here if you are interested in getting involved. You can also keep up to date and in contact with these working groups through this Web site.
We're just getting started. But the still-forming working groups are already making progress!
The "infrastructure" working group, which is focused on clearing distribution and processing obstacles between local farmers and local buyers, has competitors like food distributor Sysco and local distributor Cherry Capital Foods discussing common needs and opportunities.
The Network's farmland group, education/training group, and the Michigan Land Use Institute are collaborating on a project to put all of the region’s agricultural zoning ordinances in one place and provide models for improving them.
Priority strategies that the health/youth group identified are part of a proposal going to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for funding to help low-income families in the region learn how to cook and preserve fresh, local produce.
A group focused on finance has put together a web page that brings a wide range of funding opportunities for farms all into one place.
Please join us in person or online!
Planning Partners – Farm Route to Prosperity summit, Feb. 24, 2008
Black Star Farms
Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy
iOmni LLC
James Bardenhagen Farm
Leelanau Conservancy
Michigan Land Use Institute
Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center
Michigan State University Extension
Neahtawanta Center
Northwest Michigan Council of Governments
Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center
SEEDS
Traverse Bay Economic Development Corporation
USDA-Rural Development