What is the Leadership Network?

The Leadership Network is a statewide coalition that combines all these individual efforts into a common framework in order to maximize impacts that will spur system-wide change.

Everyone in the food system is welcome to join the Leadership Network. Whether you’re a business owner, the head of a school nutrition program, a dairy operator, or an enthusiastic eater – your leadership is needed to create a sustainable food system for California in one generation.

• Invitations to meetings, conferences, and networking events
• The opportunity to apply for ROC planning fellowships
• Requests for proposals when they are issued
• Timely news about related work across the state
• The opportunity for on-line collaboration via the California Food and Farming Portal and Wiki pages

1. All parts of the system are better understood through their relationship to the whole, realizing that a change in one part may influence other parts, thereby affecting the whole. Furthermore, there is a reciprocal obligation between the whole and the parts.
2. Striving for balance and encouraging diversity are critical for the health of the system over the long-term.
3. Environmental stewardship and social responsibility are integral to long-term economic viability. The current financial paradigm favors rapid return on investment at the highest rate possible, generally at the expense of social and ecological returns. This creates significant challenges for individuals and businesses seeking to utilize a "triple bottom line" (economic, environmental, and social returns). New business models and investment systems are needed for triple bottom line businesses seeking access to capital.
4. Community-based food enterprises are engines for building healthy local economies.
5. California's food system impacts communities and ecosystems throughout the world, and therefore food and farming practices must minimize resource use and negative economic impacts.
6. Transformation of the system will be achieved through visionary leadership, collaboration, and consensus-building that includes the diversity found within the system.
7. Sharing food around a table creates community and at every meal reminds us of our connection to the earth's bounty, and the long evolutionary struggle of all species that contribute to that bounty.

1. Ensure that the earth's resources, including soil, air, and water are regenerated and not further degraded.
2. Ensure that all Californians, regardless of income level, have access to nutritious and local food.
3. Provide meaningful livelihood and opportunities for advancement to all workers engaged in food and farming enterprises.
4. Spawn new business and financial models that allow more broadly based distribution of equity and economic benefits.
5. Ensure that all people in the food system maintain a commitment to sustainability in order to meet the needs of future generations.
6. Awaken Californians to the fundamental links between food and culture, and personal and community health.

• Competition
• Diversity
• Efficiency
• Health
• Innovation
• Interconnectedness
• Ownership
• Profitability
• Regeneration
• Safety
• Social Equity
• Sustainability