As anyone who has ever tried to work with a group on a complex design challenge knows, uncertainty is one of the most predictable parts of the job. Whether the topic is groundwater management, farm-worker housing, or building a local food alliance, project leaders are faced with the same challenge: they must bring together diverse […]
From Economic Inequality to Economic Sustainability: Lifting the barriers for everyone to thrive. May 26, 2016 8:00 am – 5:00 pm Sonoma Mountain Village 1100 Valley House Dr., Rohnert Park, CA 94928 http://www.equitablefutureconference.org/ Joseph McIntyre will present at this conference geared towards individuals working to level the playing field for greater economic equality and sustainability. […]
Even though systems thinking applications are well established in fields such as management, healthcare and psychology, its application in social change work is still a work-in-progress. There is a tremendous opportunity for us to have greater and more lasting impact by leveraging this theory and practice in our day-to-day work. Last year, we wrote about how to recognize and […]
As the market for local food expands further into the wholesale arena, the opportunity for collaboration has emerged for small farmers and their wholesale customers to create a culture of food safety in local food systems. Many small, diversified crop farmers in the U.S. that market their products directly to household shoppers through farmers markets […]
This is the first of two posts on how we work with the persistent stories that often shape the contours of the projects we faciliate. In this article, we look at the stories themselves. In our Spring Innovation Newswire we will look at how we work with them. One of the most consistent challenges we face in working […]
Ask anyone on the street if they can name at least two types of tomatoes, and they’d probably throw out “Roma” and “cherry” without missing a beat. Can they list two different market classes or varieties of wheat? Are there even different varieties of wheat? In a way they’d be correct in thinking that there isn’t much diversity. […]
Ag Innovations is hiring a Project Manager to support the successful completion of a community engagement planning process for the Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint project. The Project Manager will support the completion of a Blueprint conservation assessment drawing on the expertise and aspirations of technical and community participants across Santa Barbara County. This is a part-time […]
I have been working as an organizational development and facilitation consultant on climate adaptation in Sonoma County since 2009, when the Laguna Foundation selected climate adaptation as its main focus at their annual conference. From that conference was born the North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative (NBCAI), a coalition of natural resource managers, policymakers, and scientists working […]
In this 3-part series, Ag Innovations is examining food hub feasibility in a non-traditional way. This series weaves together insights from a growing body of food systems research and past experience in food hub development. In our first post, Efficacy of Food Hubs, we agreed on the USDA’s current definition of a food hub, then called for […]
What needs to happen next to preserve and enhance working lands in California? This was the final question posed to leaders who participated in the 2015 CRAE Summit on the Future of Working Lands. The answers were as diverse as the state’s farms, ranches, and working forests, which have adapted to environments ranging from the deserts of […]
