Welcome to Ag Innovations Network
Food and food production is the cornerstone of civilization. How we produce, distribute, and consume food reflect both what works and what is failing in our modern world.
Ag Innovations Network’s mission is to promote the long-term health of the food system and in particular, of the agricultural production upon which we all depend. To accomplish this mission, we focus exclusively on creation of critical dialogues within the food system and between food system stakeholders and the wider public. These dialogues reveal the changing needs, emerging issues, and most importantly new options that will move us towards a better food system.
We invite you to learn more about our work, our team, and our vision.
San Luis Obispo Obesity Summit
Sept 2010 Healing Our Community, Turning the Tide of Obesity will be held in San Luis Obispo on October 22, 2010. Sponsored by HEAL-SLO, the summit will address the obesity epidemic and provide strategies for building a healthy community. Joseph McIntyre, will co-lead the break-out session Together We Can Build a Better Food System for San Luis Obispo County with Kim Pasciuto, Executive Director of Central Coast Agricultural Network. Joseph and Kim will be presenting models for both community food systems and stakeholder engagement. Click for more information and to register.
SOCAP10
Sept 2010 Joseph McIntyre, will be moderating two sessions at Social Capital Markets 2010, coming to Fort Mason, San Francisco October 4-6. Bringing more people to the intersection of money and meaning than any other conference, SOCAP10 will seek to answer the question, ‘what’s next’ for the social capital markets. It will define the landscape, identify the next big obstacles, determine how to focus efforts to make the biggest difference, and explore how the social enterprise movement can best leverage its impact by partnering with nonprofits, foundations and public sources of funding.
Joseph will be moderating food systems panels during Lay of the Land: Systemic Problems, Creative Solutions, featuring Michael Dimock, Roots of Change and Jim Barham, USDA, as well as Cheryl Dahle, Future of Fish and Jose Corona, Inner City Advisors. Click for more information and to register.
CRAE Releases Climate Principles
July 2010 Led by Katy Mamen, CRAE member organizations crafted a set of climate principles (pdf) to guide the formulation of potential national climate policy that gives agricultural producers a fair opportunity to participate in a carbon offsets program, conservation programs, and other performance-based incentive mechanisms. CRAE members hope that this policy can provide resources for the research, development, and implementation of practices that will help producers increase their resilience to climate change and be effective climate stewards. A related media release (pdf) was issued on Monday, July 12.
Launch of Food & Agriculture PRI Fund
RSF Social Finance has just launched the Food & Agriculture Program-Related Investing (PRI) Fund. RSF’s PRI Fund aims to increase the flow of funding to social enterprises in local and sustainable food and agriculture by unlocking a new source of patient capital for this important sector.