Throughout California, there are many examples of successful food system practices. Yet, a detailed vision, plan, and coordinated actions to transition the whole food chain for the entire state is a new concept. It is the goal of the Roots of Change Fund is to facilitate that scale of change - to transition the entire California food system to a sustainable model by the year 2030.
The effort began with a conversation between about a dozen national and California based public and private grant makers in 1999. This discussion focused on the following question: Why isn't the food system sustainable?
Over the last twenty years, many of these foundations have put considerable resources into helping spur the sustainable food and farming objectives. While many acknowledge the strides that have been made and the growth of a successful niche industry, they are not satisfied with the pace of change.
Together they founded the Roots of Change Fund, to pursue a collaborative strategy for food systems change. They formed a top level group of food and farming experts, the Roots of Change Council that advised developing a bold, comprehensive, actionable vision for a new food system to break through the current trends in the conventional system.
ROC's 2007 Successes
ROC has a huge task, one that we are prepared to undertake and honored to engage. We are knitting a network of change agents committed to collaborating around the common goal of a sustainable food system for California by 2030. The network, composed of creative, intelligent and energetic people like you, is what will make this change happen. ROC and its public and private sector allies are working to link you all to tools and funds that will empower this important work. A key mantra for ROC is unprecedented clarity, collaboration, and resources for food system change.
ROC had many successes in 2007, success that will set the stage for more progress 2008. We:
1) Expanded our Stewardship Council to seventeen very powerful leaders who vet our plans, approve investments, and oversee operations to ensure that ROC’s purpose and principles are in fact at the center of activity; and we set a goal to seat 21 members by 2009.
2) Mapped and launched The ROC Leadership Network composed of grass root and grass top leaders. We did this by reaching out to eight California communities to invite their members to join and over five hundred new leaders have so far accepted the invitation!
3) Launched the Planning Fellows Program and provided 27 fellowships that supported deep participation of food system leaders in development of ROC’s strategy.
4) Continued to fund the policy work and expand the California Roundtable on Ag and the Environment that meets regularly in Sacramento and the county-based sustainable food system roundtables. These county groups are part of an alliance managed by Ag Innovations Network that now includes Ventura, San Benito, Yolo, Santa Barbara and San Mateo.
5) Developed meaningful working relationships with important State institutions: California Department of Food and Agriculture and the State Board of Food and Agriculture; the UC Davis Ag Sustainability Institute; members of the California Legislature; and the Department of Pesticide Regulation.
6) Began to engage large producer associations open to the idea of establishing sustainable production protocols modeled on the one developed by California’s wine industry.
7) Set the stage for collaborations with elements of the food security community in San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, and San Diego.
8) Identified at least two federal agencies (USDA’s Risk Management and Health and Human Services) that would like to help ROC succeed.
9) Helped incubate Investor Circle’s “Slow Money” project with “patient” capitalists from Investors Circle, Blue Moon Foundation, and RSF Social Finance who share your desire for food companies that are truly sustainable. Slow Money now seeks to develop a fund that would include up to $20 million dollars for California companies seeking investment.
10) Linked with two additional foundations that are interested in funding elements of the Campaign.
11) Raised our first $20,000 in December for policy work from individual Californians who share the vision of a sustainable food system and were willing to write checks.
12) Launched a workgroup that developed its first model policy for review and consideration by members of the legislature.
13) Began to link the ROC and Slow Food networks so that we may combine Slow Food’s consumer and producer base with its focus on food quality, biodiversity, and market development work with ROC’s broad coalition focused on farming systems, social justice, food access, market development, policy and community consensus building. Dovetailing ROC’s actions with Slow Food’s action will serve to empower both networks. ROC hopes this is only the first of many network couplings over the coming years, and we invite you to initiate just such a link up between your network and ROC’s.
And, from1999 - 2006, ROC achieved the following:
The New Mainstream Food and Farming System: A Vivid Picture of California's Food System in 2030
www.vividpicture.net
This research project, completed in November 2005, posits a picture of the sustainable food and farming system in the year 2030. Project components include:
1. The New Mainstream Food and Farming System in California: A comprehensive narrative vision for a sustainable food system for California that addresses multiple aspects of the system including:
- Access to quality food for all people in California;
-
Economic vitality for regional producers, manufacturers, distributors and purveyors;
-
Personal health, well-being and community-building through food and nutrition;
-
Natural resources used well and fairly so that their usefulness can be maintained in perpetuity; and
-
Enhancement of regional and cultural identities throughout California.
2. A Change Agenda: A proposed change agenda that identifies policies, economic plans, and/or communications that could shift the entire system.
3. Seventy-six Sustainability Indicators: A proposed and evolving set of indicators by which we can measure progress towards a sustainable food and farming system. The indicators are based on existing, credible data sets.
Read the summary document: The New Mainstream
Building Momentum for Change: Cultivating County Ag Futures Alliances (AFA)
Project leader: Joseph McIntyre, Ag Innovations Network
www.agfuturesalliance.net
This program is creating county leadership networks that connect and strengthen California-based organizations and individuals that have an interest in developing sustainable food systems.
The networks have three primary goals:
-
To enhance the capability of leaders and organizations;
-
To increase the visibility and credibility of these leaders and organizations; and
-
To strengthen the influence of these leaders and organizations through collaborative work to achieve policies that will support sustainable food systems.
Five counties have launched consensus-building roundtables focused on resource stewardship, land use policy, sustainable economic development, and farm workers' housing and health insurance. Additional county-level roundtables are planned.
Roots of Change Strategic Planning Fellowships
Annualy selected, the ROC Planning Fellows are group of CA food system leaders working together to develop strategies to create a sustainable food system for CA by 2030.
The 2007 class of ROC fellows was selected to reflect a level of diversity and experience representative of the current CA food system. The Planning Fellows engaged in a nine-day facilitated strategic thinking process. This year, 27 leaders from all over California were chosen to work together to define and prioritize strategies for a twenty-five year campaign to move the State’s food system to a sustainable model by 2030.
Read more about the Planning Fellowship Process.
California Roundtable on Agriculture and the Environment
Project leader: Jonathan Kaplan, Natural Resources Defense Council
http://agfuturesalliance.net/CA-Roundtable
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has formed an unprecedented collaborative involving leading environmental, agricultural, labor and government organizations in California. The goal of the Roundtable is to promote agriculture that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible. Roundtable participants strive to learn from each other about agricultural, environmental, and regulatory issues, identify common interests, and advocate in support of the group's common goals and principles. Presently, the Roundtable is exploring the development of a certification system that will ensure that California maintains the world's highest standards of sustainability in agriculture.
The Roots of Change Workforce Workgroup
Project Leader: Martha Guzman, California Rural Legal Assistance
The Workforce Workgroup was established in early 2005 to explore issues related to the agricultural workforce in the state of California. The goals of the Workforce Workgroup are twofold:
-
Increase the understanding of the current situation for food workers in California; and
-
Build a vision for a sustainable workforce in California within the context of a sustainable food system. More recently, the group has held a series of meetings across the state to engage farm workers and employers in articulating and prioritizing key levers for change in the workforce.
Read the 2007 Workforce Workgroup Report.
For a list of Workforce Workgroup participants click here.
Sustainable Food Business Advisory Board
Project Leader: Jim Cochran, Swanton Berry Farm
In 2004, ROC convened sustainable food business leaders as an informal group to explore the role of business in creating and maintaining a sustainable food system, and to think through how businesses can operate in, and support, the transition to a New Mainstream food and farming system in California. The group has identified three primary objectives for moving niche businesses to the mainstream:
-
Develop new best practices and business relationships (i.e., the development of new types of values-driven supply chains);
-
Support and replicate existing, as well as build new, sustainable business models; and
-
Develop new sources of capital that will help food and farming businesses maintain high ecological and social standards, and reorient existing sources of capital toward sustainable food enterprises.
For a list of Sustainable Food Business Council members click here.
|
|
|
