Challenges in obesity, diet related diseases, hunger, rising energy costs, a growing population, dwindling water supplies and a changing climate require our attention, and it is our responsibility to lead the way for an advanced 21st century food supply."
— California Department of Food & Agriculture
Keeping Farmers on the Land
Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach
Food systems planning is an emerging field to support, facilitate and promote local, regional and sustainable agriculture; supply chains and infrastructure to process, package and distribute food; food security, nutrition and health; and reuse, recovery, recycling, and disposal systems for food waste and packaging.
Local and Regional Food Systems Webinar Series
We are working to educate and engage planners, food policy council members, leaders in sustainable agriculture and other advocates of food system change. Our webinar series, Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach, seeks provide an opportunity for individuals working in local and regional food systems to learn from successful examples.
County and Community-Based Planning
This webinar will focus on county and community-based food and agriculture plans.
This webinar covers the key elements of state and regional plans, from engaging diverse stakeholders, to gathering good data, and how these agencies are ensuring implementation.
Consumer demand for healthy, local food presents an important opportunity to support economic development for rural communities as well as farmers and ranchers. A recent Iowa State University study, Measuring the Economic Impacts of Increased Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Production in Iowa Considering Metropolitan Demand [PDF], found that if farmers in a six state region produced sufficient quantities of 28 crops to meet local demand, it would spur $882 million in sales, more than 9,300 jobs and about $395 million in labor income
Local and Regional Food Systems Webinar Series
Consumer demand for healthy, local food presents an important opportunity to support economic development for rural communities as well as farmers and ranchers. A recent Iowa State University study, 