SAVE THE DATE Edible Economy and CU Local Foods Push
michelle wander
Folks,
Somehow summer bleed into fall and now were approaching
winter!
The good news is we have been able to schedule a visit from the Edible Economy folks, (Elaine Sebald and Terra Brockman), and Mary Beth Trakinat from the Heartland Community College plus Marty Vanags from the Economic Development Council . We will also be inviting the Feeding America/Feeding Illinois.
This will take place November 29 from 5-7 pm at the Champaign/Ford/Iroquois/Vermilion Unit Extension Unit in the farm bureau building at 801 n. country fair drive. This is one half mile north of texas roadhouse on the west side of town. There is plenty of free parking. http://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/findus.html
Please send any agenda items for that meeting to me to compile and send out and please share invitations to this event with others!
I also wanted to share notes prepared by Steve Ayers from a meeting a few of us had last week that hopefully will reinvigorate our past discussions. We are hoping to build momentum for increasing local food purchasing by large entities like.. the University of Illinois or the City. Why can’t the corn for the corn festival come from Champaign or the collar counties?
Michelle
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Notes from Local Foods Discussion October 26, 2011 at Prairie Fruits Farm. Participants were Professor Wes Jarrell, Professor Michelle Wander, Champaign County Farm Bureau Manager Brad Uken, & U of I Extension Local Foods Educator Steve Ayers
General discussion concerning the present status of local food coalitions and how to best share information among interested organizations, individuals and producers. From the producer perspective, concerns are land acquisition, financing, labor, production issues, specialty equipment, training, marketing, processing, and distribution. We discussed the need for an updated list of specialty growers, local food coalitions and other individuals or organizations that are interested in local foods.
We propose an upcoming meeting of interested local food organizations and individuals that would focus on three topics:
-land access
-farmer training
-product aggregation and shipping
We discussed the varying definitions of local foods that range from grown in Champaign County to sold through distibutors three hours away. We would like to focus our efforts on Champaign County and the surrounding counties in east central Illinois, including Piatt, Mclean, Ford, Iroquois, Vermilion, Edgar and Douglas Counties. Participation by the University of Illinois food services and support by U of I students would be critical to the success of local food efforts. We also discussed the possibility of local producers supplying the corn to the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival in August.
For our proposed local foods meeting, we will specifically invite the Mclean County local foods coalition, U of I purchasing officials, Cynthia Haskins of Illinois Farm Bureau, U of I Professor Rick Weinzerel and Diane Marlin of the City of Urbana. We will also pool local food lists to invite as many interested parties as possible. Our goal is to make our East Central Illinois Local Foods Project be a model for other areas to promote local foods efforts.
Lisa BK
Lisa Bralts