NESAWG's Discussion and Work Group Sessions connect people throughout the region and across sectors to network, share resources and best practices, identify gaps, and brainstorm solutions. Group participants continue the discussion throughout the year on our online forums. Want to be part of the conversation? Attend a Group Session at the conference and bring questions, share ideas and take action to strengthen our regional food system.
Discussion and Work Group Sessions at this year's conference include:
Diet, Geography, Access and Public Health Group Promoting Greater Food Equity and Security through Enhanced Assessment Standards
We are in the midst of negotiations for appropriations for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and it currently supplements the diets of nearly 46 million Americans. While critical to addressing the immediate needs of food on the table, what is the long term viability of SNAP and other food assistance programs? What are the root causes contributing to the increased demand for food assistance? Does the poverty level criteria used to determine eligibility for many federal food assistance programs need to be re-evaluated? What are better tools?
There are 2 parts to the interactive Diet, Geography, Access and Public Health (DGAP) exploration. Part 1 will examine the current negotiations and status of SNAP as well as trends in demand by numbers, race and ethnicity; review eligibility criteria, federal poverty levels and perceived programmatic weaknesses. We will then introduce the Self Sufficiency Standard (SSS), developed by the Center for Women's Welfare, as an alternative tool to understand economic inequality by looking at the true cost of living region by region, and discuss its potential to be a more accurate measure of household vulnerability than the Federal Poverty Level.
During Part 2, we will look more closely at the Self Sufficiency Standard (SSS) as a tool to address racial equity and food justice in our food system. We will discuss examples of its use and identify ways we could use it to set more equitable economic goals critical to promoting enhanced food access and building solutions designed to promote long term food security
Co-Leaders: Amanda Buczynski, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future; Joanne Burke, University of New Hampshire Sustainability Institute & Food Solutions New England; Karen Spiller, NESAWG Steering Committee & KAS Consulting
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Food Censorship and Misinformation Group (new group!)
Building on last year's NESAWG plenary on food censorship in the media and academia, this new group will consider ways to help expose examples of censorship and misinformation that affect perceptions of sustainable farm and food systems. Recommended reading prior to attending: Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert Communications are Shaping the Story of Food, a report by Friends of the Earth, authors: Kari Hamerschlag, Anna Lappe and Stacy Malkan. Pre-registration is required for this session; no walk-ins. To register, please email Ruth Katz [email protected] with “Food Censorship Workgroup” in the subject line.
Co-Leaders:Ruth Katz, NESAWG; Joan Gussow, Columbia University
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Food Safety Group
From 2009 – 2012 the Food Safety Working Group sessions dealt with the legislative phases of the Food Safety Modernization Act as it made its way through Congress. In 2013 the group discussions centered around a national comment campaign in response to FDA’s proposed regulations, forcing them to take their Rules back to the drawing board. The 2014 working group meeting dealt with a second comment campaign on the revamped re-regulations. With the expected release of FDA’s Final Rules later this Fall, the 2015 food safety focus will be on regulation implementation strategies and identifying and supporting viable farmer food safety training initiatives.
Leader: Steve Gilman, Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council
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Distribution & Food Hubs
The Distribution and Food Hubs Work Group is focused on issues, challenges, and best practices related to food hubs, value chains, and other strategies for wholesale distribution that support sustainable food systems goals and benefit all food systems stakeholders.
We will have two presentations focused on the state of Food Hubs. Day 1 will focus on the state of food hubs, asking the question, “Will food hubs grow and survive?” and examine challenges and opportunities. On Day 2, we’ll discuss how food hubs can compete more effectively in the future, with an eye towards the roles of collaboration and technology.
Co-Leaders:Jeff Farbman, Wallace Center at Winrock International; Jim Barham, USDA Rural Development; Ann Karlen, Fair Food Philly; Michael Rozyne, NESAWG Steering Committee & Red Tomato
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Food Systems Planning Group
The Food Systems Planning Work Group is a community of practice for those engaged in planning activities that impact the food system. Members include regional and municipal planners, food policy council members, and others engaged in food system plans and policies.
In the first session, the Food System Planning Group will explore Developing a Common Agenda for food system plans and networks. Goal development is an integral component of traditional planning processes. One of the five conditions of Collective Impact (Kania and Kramer 2011) is that stakeholders will develop and coordinate their activities around a common agenda. What does it take to develop a common agenda with diverse (and sometimes competing) food system issues such as health, social justice, farm viability, economic development and the environment? This session will include a panel of food system planners at the municipal and regional level discussing how they successfully developed common goals using broad stakeholder input. Following the panel the group will discuss the challenges of developing shared goals, and specific techniques to align goals. The second session will address any follow-up discussion from day-one, and will provide an opportunity for the group to talk about specific objectives for the Food System Planning Group for 2016.
Co-Leaders: Erica Campbell, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund; Heidi Stucker, Metropolitan Area Planning Council
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Food Systems Financing Collaborative Approaches to Financing a Better Food System
This is a reconvening of a NESAWG group which evolved into the North East Foodshed Finance Alliance (NEFFA), which launched this dialogue on shared metrics at Food + Enterprise Summit 2015.
Who: Designed for foundations, financial institutions and angel investors (collectively: "food system funders") as well as business intermediaries and researchers. What: A review of evolving opportunities and challenges for funding sustainable food and farm enterprises with both philanthropic and impact capital. Why: To overcome current barriers, innovative programming must be devised that targets both sides of investments—the businesses and investors—to bridge the gap between them. Session 1 - Discussion + Case Studies: Participants are invited to discuss their experience with barriers to investing in local food systems and detail any programs or investments that have successfully addressed these barriers. Session 2 - Analysis + Action: We will tally and evaluate best practices from the previous session and then discuss a proposed new solution, namely, adopting a Foodshed Investment Assessment Tool consisting of selected and prioritized indicators (metrics) that measure social, environmental and financial performance (returns).
