CONTEST: How can better design ensure that food grown by local farmers is delivered and distributed to urban residents?

[Season Burnett, KCCSAC Director]

(re-posted from a message in the Farmers' Market Coalition listserv,
8/12/09)

How can better design ensure that food grown by local farmers is
delivered and distributed to urban residents?

A contest sponsored by GOOD, The Architect’s Newspaper, The Urban &
Environmental Policy Institute, and The Los Angeles Good Food Network.

Demand for “good food” — defined as healthy, green, fair, and
affordable — is rising. Whether it’s from a rural family-run farm,
community-supported agriculture group, or a backyard plot, locally
grown food is increasingly viewed as a solution for many economic,
environmental, and health concerns. Yet significant barriers exist in
bringing that food to urban tables. Even if a steady supply of good
food is available, it can’t be delivered without better distribution
networks that efficiently move it to multiple outlets and consumers.

What we need is a massive shift in our food delivery systems that will
provide a variety of opportunities for farmers to sell directly and
effectively to urban residents, helping us redefine the path from farm
to fork. It’s time to rethink our local farmers’ markets.

the OBJECTIVE

We want designers, architects, farmers, chefs, vendors, and farmers’
market shoppers to think about how good design can improve upon the
modern farmers’ market experience.

the ASSIGNMENT

Design a new venue, product, distribution method, or marketing
mechanism that increases both financial returns to farmers and access
to healthy foods for consumers of all scales — from the home cook to
food service chefs. Innovations should help small family farmers bring
good food to market
and/or provide consumers access to good food.

the REQUIREMENTS

By September 1, 2009, send us an email at projects [at] goodmagazine
[dot] com with the following:

• At least one image: sketches, drawings, three dimensional
renderings, scaled technical drawings, photographs, altered
photographs. Your images do not need to be high res to submit to GOOD,
but you must have high res images ready for printing and/or
publication should we want to publish and print yours.
• A brief narrative, up to 500 words, that explains how the design
enables food production and/or delivery methods that support both the
needs of small- to mid-sized family farmers and/or distribution to
urban residents.
• Your name, city, and local farm or farmers’ markets.

the PRIZES

A jury of architects, urban planners, journalists, city leaders,
chefs, and farmers will judge the entries. Winners will be announced
September 3, 2009. The winning entry will receive a fantastic prize
package consisting of farmers’ market goodies, cookbooks, a one-year
subscription to GOOD and a GOOD T-shirt (with more to be announced).
The top three entries will be published in an upcoming issue of GOOD
magazine and exhibited at the Occidental College campus, and the
designers will be featured in a story in an upcoming issue of the
Architect’s Newspaper. The top 20 entries will be published on GOOD
<http://www.good.is/> and exhibited at the Los Angeles farmers’ market
celebration, Farmers’ Markets: 30 Years and Growing, on September 3,
2009

RESEARCH and INSPIRATION

Your design can be a permanent “hub”—a market design that will provide
year-round direct marketing opportunities for farmers and create a
vibrant public space with food at its core (this project recommended
for architects who want to propose a large-scale, holistic design).
Examples include:
• A public space customized for local farmers to sell produce year-
round
• A retail store for local farmers
• A wholesale market for local farmers to sell to restaurants and
supermarkets
• A market within a mixed-use development with complementary
businesses
• A restaurant that heavily involves and features local farmers
• A system for vending local produce within an existing retail store

Or your design can address one of the programs or products that
service farmers markets: the collection, storage, and transport of
regional foods; processing, food product development and marketing; or
food and health related community services. Some ideas include
vehicles, farm equipment, storage?-containers, distribution methods,
tents/vending stalls, kitchens for processing produce, public eating
areas?, campaigns?, school programs?, chef/restaurant programs.

Some additional inspiration:
• Read about how design can help farmers’ markets <http://www.good.is/
post/how-design-can-help-farmers-markets-feed-a-growing-demand/> from
our own Alissa Walker;
• The Science Barge <http://www.good.is/post/the-science-barge/> is a
floating sustainable farm in New York;
• The New City Market <http://thecitylab.net/projects/projects.html>
is a model for sustainable permanent markets;
• The Mercy Corps <http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010257.html>
food carts in Jakarta make healthy snacks more attractive to kids;
• Foodzie <http://foodzie.com/> is an online farmers market where
small food producers and growers can sell their products;
• The Edible Schoolyard <http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/> is a
garden and kitchen classroom for urban public school students.

--
Debra Eschmeyer
IATP and Kellogg Food & Society Policy Fellow
National Farm to School Network
Center for Food & Justice, Urban and Environmental Policy Institute,
Occidental College
t: 419.753.3412 c: 419.905.8612
desch...@oxy.edu
www.farmtoschool.org
www.uepi.oxy.edu/cfj