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February 22, 2012

What is a food system? And, how do we plan for it?

Before we can even argue that our food system is broken; before we can head down that polemic about how the way we produce, distribute and consume food is deconstructing because the way we’ve designed it to do so has done so too well; before we can then talk about the reconstruction of a food movement rising from those left out, those wanting more for themselves, families, communities and earth; we need to understand the system. What is a food system to you? How do you relate to it? What do you see wrong and right about it? 

It’s a complex web that involves those that grow the food, those that own the land, the policy makers that zone for said land, the aggregators and buyers of the food, the processors and distributors that get it to market and cafes, the farmers’ markets that small farmers rely on, the public space that brings in the customers, the guy grilling the burgers, the regulators of said burger and cow, the public health agency concerned about the related dietary illness cause by the way we’ve weaved this web, and the economic development group that works to stimulate the urban and rural community that feeds and eats. This, but also so much more, is the beginning of a food system. Don’t get bogged down. It’s important to understand the interconnectedness and to stay creative, because even those that you may initially think aren’t involved in the food system just might be. 

Planners are very good at taking complex problems and linking them, much like Lincoln Blocks. Planners are typically trained to look at these problems, both physical, political, social and cultural, as well as historical, and at many different scales. Since the food system is very involved, as the list above touches on, it’s integral to address the web on a local, regional, state and national level. This is what a food system planner does, It’s an intricate game of connect the dots. Understand your system, build the relationships, layout the ground rules, education, share, delve deep, and repeat. 

Now, what is your food system? And, how can you help plan for it? 

Link
January 31, 2012
The California Small Farms Conference

I’ll be talking about partnership building for community and economic development at farmers’ markets at the Small Farms Conference on March 4-6… expanding your customer base and creating sustainability.

Session 2: 1:15 pm to 2:45 pm, Monday March 5th
” Broaden Your Base to Increase your Farmers’ Sales and Learn about Grant Resources”

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January 25, 2012

New/Old Research on Farmers’ Markets at USDA Food and Nutrition Service

Back in the days, when I was a program analyst working on food security policy for farmers’ markets at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), I advised on the beginnings of an innovative FNS research study on farmers’ markets. This study began as a means to better understand the workings of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, at farmers’ markets. This sounds glib, but it’s actually very involved and would require lengthy writings describing the nuances and intricacies of the workings thereof and the surrounding benefits and challenges, which there are definitely a lot of and can be found here. To start, the added barriers formed when food stamps were no longer accepted as legal tender in 2005 and all benefits were redeemed via electronic benefit transfer (EBT), a credit card-like system, many ad hoc and technologically underserved farmers’ markets drastically reduced their acceptance of SNAP (the 2008 Farm Bill designated this as the new name for the Food Stamp Program), the nations largest food assistance program and one of the biggest pieces of the USDA pie.

These limitations barely touch on the tototality of complications farmers’ markets have to swim through in order to accept EBT. The USDA published, SNAP at Farmers’ Markets Handbook, touches on some of these initial processes. However, there are additional issues that farmers’ market organizations grapple with on a daily basis around outreach and affordability; administration and acculturation. The government arm isn’t best suited to address all of these issues, but where appropriate, they can make the process for becoming authorized to accept EBT more relevant and easily navigated through and they can conduct sophisticated research that looks at better understanding how these small businesses work and how they play a role in improving healthy food security, which includes not only access to food in places designated as “food deserts”, but access to healthy and regionally grown food that affects local economics and community development—which I’ll be talking more about as we meander through 2012. 

So, the FNS research study that began with the 2008 Farm Bill, about the same time I joined USDA, is poignant and will be incredibly useful in illuminating the myriad of struggles farmers’ markets face with a national lens. Hopefully, this will lead to policy changes that better accommodate them in connecting the farmers with the low-income consumers reliant upon SNAP to help them put enough food on the table, which, alarmingly, can often be the farmers’ selling at the farmers’ markets themselves.

Now, as a program manager responsible for a statewide study on similar topics, I have been invited to continue to participate in helping to develop this study as it moves forward as a member of the Technical Working Group. Thus far, the study is comprehensive and threefold. The first piece looks at the administration thereof and the ability of farmers’ markets to address healthy food security. The second piece analyzes the patronage patterns of those redeeming EBT at farmers’ markets vs those redeeming at large grocery stores, where most EBT is spent. The contingent part of the study follows up on this in parallel research and will look at incentive projects at farmers’ markets (like the one managed by Roots of Change), the administration thereof and the benefits and challenges we all face on the neighborhood, community, region and state level.

I am confidant in the team behind this study and look forward to engaging them in their plans for implementation of surveys and research development. FNS will be making reports on the study’s findings available to the public in the years to come. There is a lot of value to be had in being able to access aggregated challenges and benefits experienced across the nation; the patterns identified and the associated analysis is fodder for strong arguments that we need to make as the food system advocacy community moves towards asking for a new agricultural mainstream—I’ll also be talking about this more as 2012 unfolds. 

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November 10, 2011
Identifying and Enriching Community Partner Relationships  Very few accomplishments happen in a silo. Most successful achievements come to fruition through collaboration. Collaboration happens through building upon various relationships. Whether these are bridging or connecting relationships, as described in Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone, they are integral. As described by Putnam in his research, not all relationships are the same, nor do they refer to equal closeness. Some relationships are networks of people, professions, community groups, and/or acquaintances. In fact, as Putnam describes, most professional binds are enabled through more loose relationships, like acquaintances, rather than very close friends. However the relationship actualizes, it is important to continue to build on them and others to connect the dots that draw the lines that lead to the pot at the end of the rainbow. This is particularly important when we’re working on complicated projects like farmers markets that affect the larger food system’s interconnectedness.   To get us started, I want to pose some questions. Lets ask ourselves:   1.     What is the value of partnerships? 2.     What are the different types or partnerships? 3.     What are the different types of connections that lead to partnerships, bridging and bonding connections? 4.     How can partnerships reduce work and redundancies? 5.     How can we make time for making these connections in our busy lives?   I posed these questions to the broad audience with the FMC group at the CFSC 15th National Conference. What we got in response was some excellent brainstorming that produced a type of social mapping that looked at the different kinds of professional and community relationships that could lead to a successful farmers market project that accepts SNAP. The objective was to think of a common end goal of a farmers’ market project. Next, to think of the various players that may affect or influence this project. Then we wanted to think of individuals, groups, etc that we may not directly think of as direct players involved in this project. The project is at the center of the page. The first round of actors have their own circles and they radiate around the project goal, much like the sun and earth. Then we have a second radial ring of players that circles the fist ring of players, much like other planets in our galaxy. How each player will get to the center goal is mapped with a line drawn to connect the professional with the activity, taking us from A to B to C—in some cases.  The idea was to get the audience thinking outside the box and imaging how the other players, the ones along the outermost ring, affect or influence our collective goals that then morph with the breathing solar system.  We revisited these questions and maps at the end of this session and found that we as a group changed some of our initial perceptions. 

Identifying and Enriching Community Partner Relationships

 Very few accomplishments happen in a silo. Most successful achievements come to fruition through collaboration. Collaboration happens through building upon various relationships. Whether these are bridging or connecting relationships, as described in Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone, they are integral. As described by Putnam in his research, not all relationships are the same, nor do they refer to equal closeness. Some relationships are networks of people, professions, community groups, and/or acquaintances. In fact, as Putnam describes, most professional binds are enabled through more loose relationships, like acquaintances, rather than very close friends. However the relationship actualizes, it is important to continue to build on them and others to connect the dots that draw the lines that lead to the pot at the end of the rainbow. This is particularly important when we’re working on complicated projects like farmers markets that affect the larger food system’s interconnectedness.

 

To get us started, I want to pose some questions. Lets ask ourselves:

 

1.     What is the value of partnerships?

2.     What are the different types or partnerships?

3.     What are the different types of connections that lead to partnerships, bridging and bonding connections?

4.     How can partnerships reduce work and redundancies?

5.     How can we make time for making these connections in our busy lives?

 

I posed these questions to the broad audience with the FMC group at the CFSC 15th National Conference. What we got in response was some excellent brainstorming that produced a type of social mapping that looked at the different kinds of professional and community relationships that could lead to a successful farmers market project that accepts SNAP. The objective was to think of a common end goal of a farmers’ market project. Next, to think of the various players that may affect or influence this project. Then we wanted to think of individuals, groups, etc that we may not directly think of as direct players involved in this project. The project is at the center of the page. The first round of actors have their own circles and they radiate around the project goal, much like the sun and earth. Then we have a second radial ring of players that circles the fist ring of players, much like other planets in our galaxy. How each player will get to the center goal is mapped with a line drawn to connect the professional with the activity, taking us from A to B to C—in some cases.  The idea was to get the audience thinking outside the box and imaging how the other players, the ones along the outermost ring, affect or influence our collective goals that then morph with the breathing solar system.  We revisited these questions and maps at the end of this session and found that we as a group changed some of our initial perceptions. 

Photo
November 10, 2011
Developing and changing policy that impacts farmers markets   Introduction: All of us here are somehow tied to the success of farmers markets. We rely on them for some form of community development, food access, local economy, etc. Despite these reliances and ways in which they make our communities and regions better places, farmers markets struggle to live within our communities. Some key challenges that inhibit or prohibit some markets from actualizing are tenuous land use, convoluted and complex permitting processes, misidentified as unrelated events. These are similar challenges to many other forms of urban agriculture, like urban gardens and direct to consumer opportunities. Situations very, as relationships vary, from community to community, but in general, these challenges are faced by all markets at one time in their life.   Like other forms of urban agriculture, most farmers markets have managers that organize all of the small farmers in the region, get the support of the community, set up and take down equipment, arrange for services, and manage staff, volunteers and grants necessary to run most nonprofit markets. In addition to this, which is essentially what many nonprofits have to tackle, there are many procedures a market must go through that other nonprofits don’t have to go through before they can become a vibrant space, even if just for a few hours a week. Outside of following food ordinances, and in some states like CA, registering with the Dept of Food and Ag to become certified, they have to think about their capacity for placemaking (or, their ability to create an atmosphere that is inviting and foments community engagement) in addition to securing some kind of land tenure. This can be overwhelming on a shoestring budget and a volunteer-based staff. We end up muddling through a type of troubleshooting process that seems more organic than procedural. However, these are the realities and this is where we’re at and why we need a change in policy and supporting processes in place on the city and county-wide level, which was the crux of my presentation at the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) 15th National Conference on November 5th with the Farmers Market Coalition.   The down and dirty of the current situation, though there certainly are outliers and good examples of how these barriers have been overcome and bridges have been made, is that there are multiple permits and zoning codes that markets have to fill out and fit within; there are miscommunications between them and the planning offices and miscommunications between the city and county offices that administer and process these permits. This last one turns out to be an even greater problem than the former. All great change has great challenges that come from within, and this is no different then the problems experienced within local government offices that market managers and organizations have to work with.   The audience was comprised of professionals from a gamut of fields, such as city government, organizations that worked within or closely with local government, market managers and umbrella organizations, researchers and community organizers, to name a few. As we moved forward in this presentation I asked a bunch of questions with some suggested responses, which are above.  I asked them to hold onto these questions for conversations we’ll all have with each other throughout this conference.   We then delved into the detailed questions of Why, Who and What:   Why do we need change?: Change seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days. It is loaded with all kinds of hopes and expectations. We all know that we need to dream big and act small to create any change. There are many paths that we can take that will lead us there. Some suggestions that are core to beginning this dialog involve keeping the lines of communication open, involve communities, market managers, customers (current and future), planning offices, champion government officials and local businesses and professionals. We talked more about this in the next section on partnership building, but it’s important to keep in mind that there are many pieces to this puzzle and all need to be accounted for in order to paint the big picture.   Markets have always been gathering spaces for us all. They are providers of fresh foods in areas that have little access to them, a chance for us to know our farmers, and an opportunity to build wealth in our regions. Every dollar you spend at a farmers market stays in that region.  Every SNAP dollar you spend at the market has a two-fold benefit to the place. Market Umbrella in New Orleans has developed an indicator tool that gets at this more aptly. These local dollars are unlike the dollars you spend at a super market that has many other relationships outside of your state that get a piece of that dollar.   Additionally, markets are a platform for education about commerce, healthy eating and social connections (social capital is just as important as economic capital), though less quantifiably tangible. These are all great reasons why we support our farmers and the markets they vend at in our communities, tangentially supporting our consumers and the communities they live within.   What can Cities and Counties do?: So, now that we have some language about why we need change, whom do we talk to and how? Additionally, what kind of recommendations can we bring to the table when we get connected to the who and find the how?   When we approach cities and counties we should not cdo so exclusively, rather, we should think of them as apart of our larger famers’ market community who will have things they can do on their own as contributors, as well as things that they will have to do together in order to create the kind of fluid and lifelong change we are asking for. For example, city and county offices, whether they are planning offices, public health departments, mayoral offices, or local SNAP and WIC agencies, can all play a role in bridging the gap between producer and consumer by approaching markets as a public good that needs both public and private investment and support.   In general, the “who” we’re addressing here is city and county government in this particular case. Some local governments, by not acknowledging farmers markets in their codes, have no choice but to fit a square peg into a round hole.  This means that they apply the same regulatory and tax structure to nonprofit farmers market organizations as they do to privately owned brick and mortar retailers. Many successful markets have worked with cities to reduce rental fees for markets that are housed on city owned property, collaborated to coordinate trash and security, worked with other offices to define farmers’ markets and have gotten them written into zoning codes and comprehensive plans. These movements toward change benefits the markets, consumers and communities, but also makes it a lot easier for the staff at these offices to do their job.   So, we are arguing for more clear communications here that streamline processes and aggregate them into a centralized location. Many city permits contradict county permits. Often, both are required. This is very confusing for all involved and is often left to oversight. Though, here we are approaching these issues together so that we can address them and stop them from being pushed under the rug because they require hashing through details and troubleshooting through problems that can be daunting when one looks at all the different policy pieces that need to be aligned. Lets get our ducks in a row and have a feast at our farmers’ markets.   Examples of farmers markets operating on city-owned land; 1.     City and county involvement in farmers markets can take a variety of forms.  Some city governments host and manage farmers markets, such as the Market at the Square in Urbana, Illinois, or the City Market in Charlottesville, Virginia. 2.     To encourage the proliferation of farmers markets on city property, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors elected to waive fees for farmers markets operating in city parks.   Examples of farmers markets that work with city government to secure other services; 1.     Farmers market advocates in Seattle, Washington worked with the city’s Office of Economic Development on an ordinance that reduces fees for street closures and use of parks, as well as streamlines the permit application process. 2.     The Park and Recreation Department in Charlottesville, Virginia manages the City Market and developed a partnership with the Jefferson Area Board on Aging to manage SNAP acceptance at the market, which also offers a matching incentive program with private funding from Wholesome Wave.   Cities have a large voice, but can’t operate without cohesion with their larger counterpart, the county or regional government structures. County governments are unique in the fact that they bring rural, suburban and urban interests together. Given this vantage point, they are able to compose comprehensive plans that provide long-range land use designations and delineate zoning jurisdictions that can do amazing things like preserve farmland and allow for diversified production that enables farmers to bring the many items we see at our beloved farmers markets. By doing so, county offices also have the ability to create an overall vision for a vibrant, economically viable food system that’s accessible by all. They can enliven underutilized space and vacant lots by annotating spaces that could potentially host a farmers market, as well as identify places for complementary purposes like urban farms and community gardens.  This is a big deal. We don’t want to leave these guys out of the conversation. It gets even more confusing, though, because the offices that have these tools are called by different names in different regions and states. You’re going to have to get intimate with your government officials and get to know exacting who in your community is responsible for planning, health and policy.     Examples of farmers markets being written into comprehensive plans; 1.     Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, is considering new city rules for allowing markets to prosper on inactive parcels through amendments to four zoning categories, both business and residential   Examples of county government talking with city government to streamline supportive processes for farmers markets; 2.     The Multnomah County Commissioners in Oregon adopted a resolution that puts into place a 15 year plan for Local Food, Healthy Eating, Social Equity, Economic Vitality.  Objectives specifically incorporating farmers markets are a) to increase the acceptance of SNAP/WIC, b) establish more local food hubs, and c) ensure regulatory support for food production 3.     In 2010, the Maryland legislature passed SB 198, instituting a Producer Mobile Farmers Market License that effectively prohibited municipalities from enacting any food safety licensing fees above and beyond those required by the state 4.     The San Francisco Department of Public Health has led interagency food system planning in San Francisco, California, since 2002. We report on one of the interventions within that initiative—a partnership between a public health agency, a local nonprofit organization, and the local food stamp program to institutionalize improved access to farmers’ markets for federal food assistance beneficiaries. San Francisco city government passed an ordinance that mandates all farmers’ markets operating within the city to accept SNAP and the city will incur the bill for operating the POS machine if the market cannot, and allows third party processors to host these machines on behalf of the market.   Examples of State government working with nonprofits and communities to support farmers markets and change policy; 1.     In California, the Healthy Eating Healthy Living Cities Campaign catalogues municipal policies that encourage physical activity and access to nutritious foods.  As their website states, “cities can support local agriculture and bring healthy food to residents by defining farmers markets in the general plan and zoning code and encouraging them to accept the electronic benefit transfer card (EBT) and WIC coupons. 2.     Programs like the California Farmers’ Market Consortium (CFMC), a statewide partnership managed by Roots of Change (ROC), is dedicated to improving healthy food access within disadvantaged communities while increasing the incomes of farmers selling fresh fruits and vegetables to SNAP and WIC customers.  This project is made possible through a SCBG, in addition to private fundraising efforts. Government agencies and nonprofit organizations at state and local levels can play a large role in facilitating similar programs. 3.     California also supplies all markets with a free wireless POS device to accept SNAP benefits.   What can we do to help them change?: Ultimately, the government is concerned with many of the same things that you all are concerned about; including health, hygiene, community, and local economics. We all want to prosper and farmers’ markets represent a microcosm of ways that we can.   We can work with local businesses to gain support for markets establishing in their neighborhood, advocate for streamlined policies, partner with each other to build a movement and a larger voice to set examples across the country, and work with your government offices and advocate for their leadership.   I don’t have the answers. I have some suggestions, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these types of complicated projects. What we can do is collaborate and ask similar questions and then revisit them as a group. By crafting some answers we can develop more refined tools to foster change. I’d like to revisit some of these questions again with you all…   1.     Why do we need to provide farmers markets secure land tenure? 2.     Why do we support EBT at farmers markets? 3.     What does this mean for our community landscapes? 4.     What does this mean for our local food access? 5.     What does this mean for our regional farmers? 6.     What were some key ideas we can takeaway from examples of successful farmers markets? 7.     What role did city and county government play in these successful examples? 8.     What role did local organizations play in these successful examples? 9.     How do some farmers markets become more permanent spaces while others don’t? 10.  How can cities and counties better support these efforts? 11.  How can we support food access projects at the local level to influence a change in the SNAP administration at farmers’ markets?   Further reading: Lastly, you are not alone in this change-making. There are several organizations working to foment this change all across the country, some even in your backyards. I encourage you to make friends and utilize the resources out there. One of the worse things a nonprofit working in food systems can do is negate the work that has already been done or get too caught up in the immediacy of it all to look around and see the parallels out there. It takes less time to do these things then it does to reinvent the wheel.   1.     Resource for jurisdictions interested in re-evaluating sanitation policies related to farmers markets is available via the doc “ From the Field to the Table: Suggested Food Handling for Farmers Markets, Fairs, and Festivals.” put out by FMC. 2.     Public Health Law & Policy (PHLP) provides legal information on matters relating to public health and have published documents in “Establishing Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets,” for example, offers examples of municipalities integrating markets into their city’s general plans and model land use policies for supporting and protecting farmers markets and the farmers on which they depend 3.     Market Umbrella market has an online service that helps markets conduct an economic impact evaluation that can then be take to gov officials in support of streamlining planning and permitting processes for these projects. 4.     County-Specific Obesity, Diabetes, and Physical Inactivity Prevalence Data (CDC) 5.     Food Environment Atlas (USDA) 6.     Food Desert Locator (USDA) 7.     National Farmers Market Directory

Developing and changing policy that impacts farmers markets

 

Introduction:

All of us here are somehow tied to the success of farmers markets. We rely on them for some form of community development, food access, local economy, etc. Despite these reliances and ways in which they make our communities and regions better places, farmers markets struggle to live within our communities. Some key challenges that inhibit or prohibit some markets from actualizing are tenuous land use, convoluted and complex permitting processes, misidentified as unrelated events. These are similar challenges to many other forms of urban agriculture, like urban gardens and direct to consumer opportunities. Situations very, as relationships vary, from community to community, but in general, these challenges are faced by all markets at one time in their life.

 

Like other forms of urban agriculture, most farmers markets have managers that organize all of the small farmers in the region, get the support of the community, set up and take down equipment, arrange for services, and manage staff, volunteers and grants necessary to run most nonprofit markets. In addition to this, which is essentially what many nonprofits have to tackle, there are many procedures a market must go through that other nonprofits don’t have to go through before they can become a vibrant space, even if just for a few hours a week. Outside of following food ordinances, and in some states like CA, registering with the Dept of Food and Ag to become certified, they have to think about their capacity for placemaking (or, their ability to create an atmosphere that is inviting and foments community engagement) in addition to securing some kind of land tenure. This can be overwhelming on a shoestring budget and a volunteer-based staff. We end up muddling through a type of troubleshooting process that seems more organic than procedural. However, these are the realities and this is where we’re at and why we need a change in policy and supporting processes in place on the city and county-wide level, which was the crux of my presentation at the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) 15th National Conference on November 5th with the Farmers Market Coalition.

 

The down and dirty of the current situation, though there certainly are outliers and good examples of how these barriers have been overcome and bridges have been made, is that there are multiple permits and zoning codes that markets have to fill out and fit within; there are miscommunications between them and the planning offices and miscommunications between the city and county offices that administer and process these permits. This last one turns out to be an even greater problem than the former. All great change has great challenges that come from within, and this is no different then the problems experienced within local government offices that market managers and organizations have to work with.

 

The audience was comprised of professionals from a gamut of fields, such as city government, organizations that worked within or closely with local government, market managers and umbrella organizations, researchers and community organizers, to name a few. As we moved forward in this presentation I asked a bunch of questions with some suggested responses, which are above.  I asked them to hold onto these questions for conversations we’ll all have with each other throughout this conference.

 

We then delved into the detailed questions of Why, Who and What:

 

Why do we need change?:

Change seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days. It is loaded with all kinds of hopes and expectations. We all know that we need to dream big and act small to create any change. There are many paths that we can take that will lead us there. Some suggestions that are core to beginning this dialog involve keeping the lines of communication open, involve communities, market managers, customers (current and future), planning offices, champion government officials and local businesses and professionals. We talked more about this in the next section on partnership building, but it’s important to keep in mind that there are many pieces to this puzzle and all need to be accounted for in order to paint the big picture.

 

Markets have always been gathering spaces for us all. They are providers of fresh foods in areas that have little access to them, a chance for us to know our farmers, and an opportunity to build wealth in our regions. Every dollar you spend at a farmers market stays in that region.  Every SNAP dollar you spend at the market has a two-fold benefit to the place. Market Umbrella in New Orleans has developed an indicator tool that gets at this more aptly. These local dollars are unlike the dollars you spend at a super market that has many other relationships outside of your state that get a piece of that dollar.

 

Additionally, markets are a platform for education about commerce, healthy eating and social connections (social capital is just as important as economic capital), though less quantifiably tangible. These are all great reasons why we support our farmers and the markets they vend at in our communities, tangentially supporting our consumers and the communities they live within.

 

What can Cities and Counties do?:

So, now that we have some language about why we need change, whom do we talk to and how? Additionally, what kind of recommendations can we bring to the table when we get connected to the who and find the how?

 

When we approach cities and counties we should not cdo so exclusively, rather, we should think of them as apart of our larger famers’ market community who will have things they can do on their own as contributors, as well as things that they will have to do together in order to create the kind of fluid and lifelong change we are asking for. For example, city and county offices, whether they are planning offices, public health departments, mayoral offices, or local SNAP and WIC agencies, can all play a role in bridging the gap between producer and consumer by approaching markets as a public good that needs both public and private investment and support.

 

In general, the “who” we’re addressing here is city and county government in this particular case. Some local governments, by not acknowledging farmers markets in their codes, have no choice but to fit a square peg into a round hole.  This means that they apply the same regulatory and tax structure to nonprofit farmers market organizations as they do to privately owned brick and mortar retailers. Many successful markets have worked with cities to reduce rental fees for markets that are housed on city owned property, collaborated to coordinate trash and security, worked with other offices to define farmers’ markets and have gotten them written into zoning codes and comprehensive plans. These movements toward change benefits the markets, consumers and communities, but also makes it a lot easier for the staff at these offices to do their job.

 

So, we are arguing for more clear communications here that streamline processes and aggregate them into a centralized location. Many city permits contradict county permits. Often, both are required. This is very confusing for all involved and is often left to oversight. Though, here we are approaching these issues together so that we can address them and stop them from being pushed under the rug because they require hashing through details and troubleshooting through problems that can be daunting when one looks at all the different policy pieces that need to be aligned. Lets get our ducks in a row and have a feast at our farmers’ markets.

 

Examples of farmers markets operating on city-owned land;

1.     City and county involvement in farmers markets can take a variety of forms.  Some city governments host and manage farmers markets, such as the Market at the Square in Urbana, Illinois, or the City Market in Charlottesville, Virginia.

2.     To encourage the proliferation of farmers markets on city property, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors elected to waive fees for farmers markets operating in city parks.

 

Examples of farmers markets that work with city government to secure other services;

1.     Farmers market advocates in Seattle, Washington worked with the city’s Office of Economic Development on an ordinance that reduces fees for street closures and use of parks, as well as streamlines the permit application process.

2.     The Park and Recreation Department in Charlottesville, Virginia manages the City Market and developed a partnership with the Jefferson Area Board on Aging to manage SNAP acceptance at the market, which also offers a matching incentive program with private funding from Wholesome Wave.

 

Cities have a large voice, but can’t operate without cohesion with their larger counterpart, the county or regional government structures. County governments are unique in the fact that they bring rural, suburban and urban interests together. Given this vantage point, they are able to compose comprehensive plans that provide long-range land use designations and delineate zoning jurisdictions that can do amazing things like preserve farmland and allow for diversified production that enables farmers to bring the many items we see at our beloved farmers markets. By doing so, county offices also have the ability to create an overall vision for a vibrant, economically viable food system that’s accessible by all. They can enliven underutilized space and vacant lots by annotating spaces that could potentially host a farmers market, as well as identify places for complementary purposes like urban farms and community gardens.  This is a big deal. We don’t want to leave these guys out of the conversation. It gets even more confusing, though, because the offices that have these tools are called by different names in different regions and states. You’re going to have to get intimate with your government officials and get to know exacting who in your community is responsible for planning, health and policy.  

 

Examples of farmers markets being written into comprehensive plans;

1.     Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, is considering new city rules for allowing markets to prosper on inactive parcels through amendments to four zoning categories, both business and residential

 

Examples of county government talking with city government to streamline supportive processes for farmers markets;

2.     The Multnomah County Commissioners in Oregon adopted a resolution that puts into place a 15 year plan for Local Food, Healthy Eating, Social Equity, Economic Vitality.  Objectives specifically incorporating farmers markets are a) to increase the acceptance of SNAP/WIC, b) establish more local food hubs, and c) ensure regulatory support for food production

3.     In 2010, the Maryland legislature passed SB 198, instituting a Producer Mobile Farmers Market License that effectively prohibited municipalities from enacting any food safety licensing fees above and beyond those required by the state

4.     The San Francisco Department of Public Health has led interagency food system planning in San Francisco, California, since 2002. We report on one of the interventions within that initiative—a partnership between a public health agency, a local nonprofit organization, and the local food stamp program to institutionalize improved access to farmers’ markets for federal food assistance beneficiaries. San Francisco city government passed an ordinance that mandates all farmers’ markets operating within the city to accept SNAP and the city will incur the bill for operating the POS machine if the market cannot, and allows third party processors to host these machines on behalf of the market.

 

Examples of State government working with nonprofits and communities to support farmers markets and change policy;

1.     In California, the Healthy Eating Healthy Living Cities Campaign catalogues municipal policies that encourage physical activity and access to nutritious foods.  As their website states, “cities can support local agriculture and bring healthy food to residents by defining farmers markets in the general plan and zoning code and encouraging them to accept the electronic benefit transfer card (EBT) and WIC coupons.

2.     Programs like the California Farmers’ Market Consortium (CFMC), a statewide partnership managed by Roots of Change (ROC), is dedicated to improving healthy food access within disadvantaged communities while increasing the incomes of farmers selling fresh fruits and vegetables to SNAP and WIC customers.  This project is made possible through a SCBG, in addition to private fundraising efforts. Government agencies and nonprofit organizations at state and local levels can play a large role in facilitating similar programs.

3.     California also supplies all markets with a free wireless POS device to accept SNAP benefits.

 

What can we do to help them change?:

Ultimately, the government is concerned with many of the same things that you all are concerned about; including health, hygiene, community, and local economics. We all want to prosper and farmers’ markets represent a microcosm of ways that we can.

 

We can work with local businesses to gain support for markets establishing in their neighborhood, advocate for streamlined policies, partner with each other to build a movement and a larger voice to set examples across the country, and work with your government offices and advocate for their leadership.

 

I don’t have the answers. I have some suggestions, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these types of complicated projects. What we can do is collaborate and ask similar questions and then revisit them as a group. By crafting some answers we can develop more refined tools to foster change. I’d like to revisit some of these questions again with you all…

 

1.     Why do we need to provide farmers markets secure land tenure?

2.     Why do we support EBT at farmers markets?

3.     What does this mean for our community landscapes?

4.     What does this mean for our local food access?

5.     What does this mean for our regional farmers?

6.     What were some key ideas we can takeaway from examples of successful farmers markets?

7.     What role did city and county government play in these successful examples?

8.     What role did local organizations play in these successful examples?

9.     How do some farmers markets become more permanent spaces while others don’t?

10.  How can cities and counties better support these efforts?

11.  How can we support food access projects at the local level to influence a change in the SNAP administration at farmers’ markets?

 

Further reading:

Lastly, you are not alone in this change-making. There are several organizations working to foment this change all across the country, some even in your backyards. I encourage you to make friends and utilize the resources out there. One of the worse things a nonprofit working in food systems can do is negate the work that has already been done or get too caught up in the immediacy of it all to look around and see the parallels out there. It takes less time to do these things then it does to reinvent the wheel.

 

1.     Resource for jurisdictions interested in re-evaluating sanitation policies related to farmers markets is available via the doc “ From the Field to the Table: Suggested Food Handling for Farmers Markets, Fairs, and Festivals.” put out by FMC.

2.     Public Health Law & Policy (PHLP) provides legal information on matters relating to public health and have published documents in “Establishing Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets,” for example, offers examples of municipalities integrating markets into their city’s general plans and model land use policies for supporting and protecting farmers markets and the farmers on which they depend

3.     Market Umbrella market has an online service that helps markets conduct an economic impact evaluation that can then be take to gov officials in support of streamlining planning and permitting processes for these projects.

4.     County-Specific Obesity, Diabetes, and Physical Inactivity Prevalence Data (CDC)

5.     Food Environment Atlas (USDA)

6.     Food Desert Locator (USDA)

7.     National Farmers Market Directory

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November 10, 2011
Food sovereignty was the overarching theme at the Community Food Security Coalition’s National Conference in Oakland, CA this last week. Food sovereignty refers to ways in which we cultivate our land to plant and harvest food that is healthful for the land and the people that grow it and eat it. This includes ways in which food is distributed, making sure that healthy food is accessible to all, regardless of class, race, age, or gender. If we were food sovereign then we wouldn’t have food deserts, we wouldn’t have farmers’ markets that didn’t accept CalFresh and WIC benefits, we would have more urban gardens on underused land, and we would have bodegas and grocery stores that stocked local farm produce because it was fair in price and to the community. There were amazing conversations that touched on difficult topics of gender, equality, race, class, and the haves vs. the have nots’. Food First has produced short clips that captured some of these discussions. We should all work towards food justice.

Food sovereignty was the overarching theme at the Community Food Security Coalition’s National Conference in Oakland, CA this last week. Food sovereignty refers to ways in which we cultivate our land to plant and harvest food that is healthful for the land and the people that grow it and eat it. This includes ways in which food is distributed, making sure that healthy food is accessible to all, regardless of class, race, age, or gender. If we were food sovereign then we wouldn’t have food deserts, we wouldn’t have farmers’ markets that didn’t accept CalFresh and WIC benefits, we would have more urban gardens on underused land, and we would have bodegas and grocery stores that stocked local farm produce because it was fair in price and to the community.

There were amazing conversations that touched on difficult topics of gender, equality, race, class, and the haves vs. the have nots’. Food First has produced short clips that captured some of these discussions. We should all work towards food justice.

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October 31, 2011
Community Food Security Coalition 15th Annual Conference

I’ll be participating in one workshop talking about network and partnership building for food system projects, highlighting a social mapping exercise that demonstrates the interconnectedness and value of diversification in funding and collaboration, and one panel discussion talking about the CFMC as a project example for other communities and states to move forward with. Come say hi in Oakland, CA this weekend, Nov 4th-7th. 

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October 21, 2011

CFMC has another year of life, thanks to the CDFA SCBG

The Roots of Change (ROC) managed California Farmers’ Market Consortium (CFMC) project just got awarded another year of funding from the CA Department of Food and Agriculture through a Specialty Crop Blog Grant. This enables us (ROC) to continue our work with nonprofit organizations throughout the state working on farmers’ market projects that increase healthy food access to CalFresh customers. We (ROC) plan on extending the reach of this project to more communities in-need and expanding our capacity as a managing organization and as a collective CFMC group. Together, we (the CFMC) are an information sharing community, working research collaborative and advocacy group looking to improve projects and policies surrounding farmers’ markets. This year, we will focus on the sustainability of these projects as a local economic engine, community resource and partnership convener. 

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August 10, 2011
The California Report -- California leads nation in farmers markets

Nutrition related diseases and hunger are at an all time high, and only exacerbated by the continued economic decline and social disparities. These food related issues were once seen as contentious, but are being addressed as the related problems that they are. The CFCM is working to create greater food access for those in-need at farmers’ markets in the great agricultural state of California. We need more collaboration and public-private partnerships to continue this good work. We need you. 

Check out this California Report Article on the CFMC project that helps community-based organizations throughout the state offer incentives in the form of cash value vouchers to those purchasing locally grown fruits, veggies and nuts with their CalFresh (formerly known as food stamps) benefits at farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods. = Greater food access and increased farming incomes reliant upon direct marketing venues (farmers’ markets and CSA) for their sole source of cash. 

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July 07, 2011
ROC's California Farmers Market Consortium Blog
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July 07, 2011
Roots of Change is trying to build momentum for the good food movement and we want/NEED you to join us so we can support ALL those who grow the food for ALL those who eat the food!!
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June 30, 2011
APA Food Interest Group

‘APA’s Food Interest Group (FIG) is a coalition of APA members interested in or actively engaged in food system planning at the local, regional, state, or national level. It was initiated in 2005 by Jerry Kaufman, FAICP, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Deanna Glosser, president and CEO of Environmental Planning Solutions, Inc. and former APA Divisions Council vice-chair.’

I participate in this group’s activities as a food system planner engaging in the dialog and working to broaden the conversation and reach. We are currently working on helping the APA plan for the 2012 conference in LA. There is a food interest tract for the first time and a call for proposals on projects that delve into the nitty gritty of food system planning. 

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May 19, 2011
Santa Rosa Farmers' Market Encouraging Food Stamp Use

This is an NPR piece on the ”Santa Rosa Farmers’ Market Encouraging Food Stamp Use. A program of the Santa Rosa Farmers’ Market is offering shoppers on food stamps an incentive to buy local produce. For every two dollars shoppers spend using their food stamp card, the market gives out three dollars of tokens, usable at any of the vendors.”

The core partners receive additional donations from ROC funders and foundations to support “top-up” incentives provided to farmers’ market customers using their federal benefits—including CalFresh (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), Special Nutrition Program for Women Infant and Children (WIC), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Top-up incentives represent cash values as vouchers that match federal benefit dollars spent at participating farmers’ markets, which can only be used to purchase specialty crops. The project requires the core partners to engage in matching this funding with their own fundraising, creating a larger network and pool of incentives that can be offered to federal benefit customers. 

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May 19, 2011

Roots of Change

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March 02, 2011
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The Roots of Change Managed California Farmers’ Market Consortium

I manage the Roots of Change California Farmers Market Consortium; a statewide partnership with eight organizations dedicated to increasing food access and the incomes of specialty crop farmers by creating greater access to farmer’s markets.  The CFMC partners match federal benefits with incentives in the form of market match money at 50% or 100% percent (depending on the market) to attract the largest number of targeted federal benefit customers, like those accessing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—formerly known as Food Stamps, or in CA, CalFresh—and Special Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC). Additional partnerships have been formed with county and state offices that work with farmers’ markets and low-income populations to strengthen the connections and outreach needed to increase patronage of fresh, local agricultural products by those who need them most.


This project is made possible through a CA Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) California Specialty Crop Block Grant (SCBG).  Collectively, the CFMC has raised over $300,000 for incentives to be spent at the market, in addition to the money spent in the form of federal benefits at the partnering famers’ markets in under two years. Over 850 individual farmers throughout the state and countless federal benefit customers have benefited from this extra money at over 65 farmers markets from San Diego to Humboldt County.  This project is able to continue to succeed by strengthening existing relationships and building upon new ones that allows us to expand the network, deepen the integrity of the statewide program, and continue to model research methods to collect diligent data on the benefits and challenges of the CFMC.