Sustainable Engagement with the Food System

SESSION I: Sustainable Engagement with the Food System

Session Organizers: François Amar, Mark Haggerty, John Jemison, Melissa Ladenheim, Linda Silka, Stephanie Welcomer, University of Maine

Session Description: Creating and maintaining sustainable food systems is a critical and growing challenge to global society. Population growth, demographic shifts, climate change, and income inequality impact the food system at all levels. Maine ranks first in New England in food insecurity; one in four of Maine’s children are at risk. Building capacity in our universities and communities to foster engaged research—research that generates solutions to real-world problems—is crucial to fostering sustainable communities and responsive food systems. This session will discuss collaborative approaches on a range of topics related to Sustainable Food Systems including but not limited to: agricultural practices, production and distribution; marketing and consumption; food insecurity; as well as social, ethical, and political concerns.

Presentations Available

Session Overview

8:30-8:55 am
Finding and Building on Opportunities for Community-University Engagement on Food Systems (Panel Discussion)
Moderator: Tim Waring
Presenters: Mark Haggerty, John Jemison, Kate Sheridan, Linda Silka

Creating and maintaining sustainable food systems is a critical and growing challenge to global society. Population growth, demographic shifts, climate change, and income inequality impact the food system at all levels. Maine ranks first in New England in food insecurity; one in four of Maine’s children are at risk. Building capacity in our universities and communities to foster engaged research—research that generates solutions to real-world problems—is crucial to fostering sustainable communities and responsive food systems. Our panel describes an exciting new initiative at the University of Maine designed to bring together faculty and students to work with partners on sustainable food systems. Built around the Honors Program—which brings together students from many disciplines to do research—this initiative is intended to increase the university’s capacity to partner on this crucial sustainability topic. We will report on what has been achieved thus far and will consider the following questions: Maine is increasingly recognized as a major innovator in sustainable food systems. How can higher education be helpful in this important work? What are partners telling us that they see as possible roles for higher education? Students are an important resource but are at the university for a relatively short time: how do we learn to “hand off the baton” between students so that student involvement becomes an asset and not a burden for partners? How do we build a culture of encouraging learning across projects, disciplines, problems, and issues? We will provide examples of the current and proposed projects emerging from this work.

9:00-9:25 am
A Collaboration to Increase Local & Sustainable Sourcing for the UMaine System
Riley Neugebauer, Real Food Challenge, Maine Farmland Trust

Farm to Institution New England (FINE) is joining farmers, fishermen, students, as well as businesses and other non-profits in recognizing an opportunity to create opportunities for sourcing more Maine-grown and New England-grown foods within the University of Maine system. FINE focuses on increasing the amount of New England-grown food served in our region’s institutions. Other organizations have also taken note of this opportunity. Maine Farmland Trust and other farmer advocacy groups are interested in supporting the development of additional markets for farmers in the state and Real Food Challenge is interested to leverage the power of youth and universities to create a healthy, fair and green food system.

One of the most important leverage points within our institutional food system is the contracting process, through which legally-binding agreements between distributors and/or food service management companies are negotiated and agreed upon by institutions and private companies. Foodservice contracts vary in their depth and breadth, but include any goals or stipulations related to the sourcing and procurement of food. The current food service contract for the UMaine system will end in 2016, and the process to negotiate the next contract is underway. FINE and others are interested to better understand the opportunities and challenges for increasing the amount of local foods offered by UMaine by hearing the perspectives of dining staff, students, and faculty, as well as producers, distributors, and other food system advocates. We plan to join stakeholders in providing recommendations to the University Committee that will determine the next food service vendor. We also hope to begin building stronger supply chains for specific products that can respond to increased demand from our state’s institutions in the next few years. Our oral presentation will highlight our efforts to date and any identified opportunities, as well as invite participation from additional stakeholders.

9:30-9:55 am
A Food Hub as a Component of Regional Economic Sustainability
Geoff Gordon, Orono Town Council and Evan Richert, Orono Town Planner

Agricultural policies and subsidies in the US have resulted in a dramatic shift in scale in agricultural production. Growers in most regions shifted to commodity grain production and local businesses serving fresh produce growers went out of business. Growers in warm weather climates pressed their competitive advantages and local producers of fresh market crops nearly disappeared from the economies of their regions. Those few that remained faced diminished market opportunities as a result of the loss of those local enterprises that provided post-harvest services. Distribution of food stuffs in the US is dominated by large national organizations whose efficient scale of operation eliminates the local producer from most market sectors.

That situation has begun to change at the behest of current market forces where the end point consumers are increasingly demanding access to locally produced food. Manifestation of that consumer interest can be seen in the appearance of local produce sections in large grocery chains and in many institutions and restaurants now setting self-imposed quotas for local foods in their food offerings. Gaining access to that restaurant and institutional market is at the same time a difficult challenge and an important opportunity for the local grower.

Post-harvest, fresh produce must be cleaned, cooled, packed, and shipped in order for it to be sold to distributors and wholesalers. Few local growers possess the capability to efficiently perform post-harvest functions, creating an insurmountable obstacle to reaching the market place. The remaining market access exists only in the form of end consumer direct market channels, which account for less than 1% of produce sales. The Food Hub concept arises in response to the need for post-harvest service providers who can generate the scale linkage between the small-scale producer and the institutional market. In that way Food Hubs enable a strong, diversified, and sustainable regional food system by providing an opportunity for the small-scale producers to reach the larger-scale institutional, food service, and retail market channels, where 99% of sales are found.

While some entrepreneurs have ventured into the Food Hub business, many more are needed. Attempts to recruit socially conscious investors with access to the patient capital necessary to establish those new Food Hub enterprises will be successful only if a convincing case of feasibility can be made. A demand-side analysis of the institutional, food service, and retail markets must demonstrate that the enterprise will be adequately sustained in order to realize the goal of having local agriculture serve as a significant contributing factor in a sustainable rural community.

The Orono Economic Development Corporation is leading a consortium of Greater Bangor economic development organizations and municipalities in an effort to design an appropriate market analysis, determine the appropriate Food Hub model, and detail several other elements of a business plan. Consortium members, study design, funding efforts and planned dissemination of results are introduced and described.

10:00-10:25 am
Veggies for All
Sara Trunzo, Farm Viability Project Manager and Veggie for All Director, Maine Farmland Trust

Maine’s agricultural sector is rapidly expanding. More young people move to Maine each year to pursue farming as a profession, and consumers are growing increasingly aware of the benefits of local purchasing. Despite the positive energy in the food movement, Maine still faces the harsh reality of limitations to food access. Over 15% of all residents live with food insecurity and 45% of Maine children are eligible for free and reduced lunch. In addition, Maine ranks as one of the “hungriest” states: 17th in the nation and 1st in New England. One rural, college town responded to this issue by creating a community-based, agriculture-centered approach to relieving emergency food needs, while supporting proactive efforts to address the root causes of hunger. Veggies For All (VFA), a project of Maine Farmland Trust, is a 4-acre discontiguous food bank farm located in Unity, Maine. VFA works to relieve hunger by growing vegetables for those in need while collaborating with 10 food pantries to distribute nutritious, quality food to 1,500 food insecure, rural people in central Maine. Founded by beginning farmers in 2007, VFA has grown and distributed over 100,000 pounds of vegetables and engaged hundreds of volunteers in thousands of hours of service. This session explores the food bank farm model, the formation of strategic community and academic partnerships (specifically with Unity College) to increase impacts, methods of engaging college student leadership, best practices of grass roots food access work, and opportunities for the food and agriculture industry and individual businesses to benefit from improving low-income consumers’ access to local food.