Building Local Food Networks Toolkit

Nov. 3, 2008
At Changemakers Day 2008, Deborah Kane, Ecotrust’s VP of Food and Farms, presented a session exploring the nuts and bolts of Ecotrust’s new Building Local Food Networks Toolkit. The toolkit synthesizes many years of experience building local food networks in the Pacific Northwest. Here is an intro to the nuts and bolts of this toolkit, laid out for those of you who weren’t able to attend that session.

The Farmer-Chef Connection conference was established in 2001 by a group of volunteers in Portland, Oregon – the result of a creative collaboration between Ecotrust and the Portland Chapter of the Chefs Collaborative.

The event, which ultimately spawned the Ecotrust Food & Farms program, was created to foster collaboration and relationship-based, business-to-business, direct market opportunities amongst local producers and food buyers. Our initial focus on connecting farmers to restaurant chefs quickly expanded to include ranchers, fishermen, grocery retailers, specialty food store owners, food service operators, institutional buyers, processors and distributors who are committed to expanding and strengthening local, seasonal and sustainable food networks. Our goal then and now is to grow the supply and demand for locally produced food.

Now almost a decade later, the simple idea that food producers and food buyers can connect directly is still revolutionary. In fact, over and over again, we have been surprised and amazed by what happens when we put local food buyers and local food producers in the same room, at the same time, and give them space to talk. It can be that simple.

What began as just a small gathering of farmers and chefs has metamorphosed into an economic engine for local agriculture and an educational forum for communities throughout the region – with no end in sight. Since we hosted our first conference, our network in the Pacific Northwest has grown to over 400 producers and 300 buyers who are collectively doing over $100 million in annual business. Portland, Oregon alone now has 70 businesses that buy locally grown products direct from producers, including restaurants, college and corporate campuses, hospitals, retail grocery stores, and public schools. Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington have emerged as the only two states in the country where the number of farmers is actually increasing.

The trends were so encouraging that soon colleagues in other parts of the country started calling to see if we could share the model. Thus, in 2007 Ecotrust published Building Local Food Networks: A Toolkit for Organizers. The Toolkit provides guidance for establishing local food networks in general, as well as specifics about organizing a Farmer-Chef Connection gathering in detail. Extensive appendices provide sample materials, templates, and tools for organizers.

Building Local Food Networks: A Toolkit for Organizers is designed for food systems organizers who are seeking effective tools to build or bolster their local food economy, and specifically, for those interested in stimulating a business-to-business network of food producers and food buyers within a specific region. Building Local Food Networks outlines principles, tips, and best practices for bringing together local food producers and local food buyers to stimulate direct market commerce of local goods.

In the Pacific Northwest there are several iterations of the original “Farmer-Chef Connection” event, some organized by local Chefs Collaborative chapters and still others by local government agencies or non-profit organizations. Across the country, thanks to the Toolkit, 35 distinct communities—from New Orleans to Iowa City and Saskatoon to Durango, CO—hosted networking events.

In conjunction with the toolkit, Ecotrust hosts an online, interactive learning community to stimulate peer-to-peer exchange of ideas, questions, and lessons learned around the topic of building local food networks. This participatory social networking forum is designed to create new partnership and networking opportunities among individuals and organizations.

By establishing an online gathering point for organizers, our goal is to bring together a network of network organizers, to share in the learning that results from our interaction, to reach out across organizational boundaries, and to help achieve more highly and effectively networked local food systems around the country, and the world.

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