News from the Ag Futures and Food System Alliances
The Ag Futures and Food System Alliance movement is project to bring together food producers, consumers, local leaders, health care advocates, and environmentalists to work at county-level action to create a food system that matches our hopes and dreams for the future. Today there are four “Roundtables” working across California. Here is a quick rundown on each:
Strawberries are a key commodity in Ventura County
The Ventura County Ag Futures Alliance (AFA) has been in operation since 2000 and has spawned California’s largest grassroots effort to build farm worker housing, brought hundreds of citizens together to advance stewardship efforts in their county, and published six citizen while papers on topics ranging from pesticide use to providing health care for farm workers each of which has been backed by concrete local actions.
The Yolo County AFA has since 2004 focused largely on issues of land use and planning in the County. Their work on ag land mitigation policy and advocacy for farm land preservation in the county General Plan has made them a key resource for County planners. The group is now leading the charge to strengthen the California Right to Farm laws and to bring new processing capacity to the County.
San Mateo FSA members at their Constitution signing
“The San Mateo County FSA”:http://sanmateocofsa.org is focused on three priorities: encouraging every elementary school in the County to have a comprehensive garden-based education program, increasing direct farm to institution food sales, and ag land availability. In the group’s first year, it successfully educated the Counties mayors on Farm Bill issues and created important new connections between coast-side growers and bay-side community groups.
The Santa Barbara County AFA is preparing its formal public launch and has identified permanent ag land preservation and increased farm worker housing as its two top priorities.
All of these efforts have some common themes and beliefs:
- One of the key strategies for building a better food system is creating strong grassroots organizations of leaders who can speak to the common good around food and agriculture.
- That it is possible for local communities to make real changes, even in a global food system.
- That as we build more AFAs and FSAs, they become a powerful network capable of making change far beyond their local borders.
Our goal is to create more of these roundtables where people can come together, build consensus, solve local problems, and help create a positive future for themselves and future generations. If you are interested in learning more about the AFA/FSA program and how you might start one in your community or county, please contact Joseph McIntyre at Ag Innovations Network.
→ Next article: New Ag Innovations Network Site Launches
← Previous article: Welcome to the Ag Innovations Network!