Our Vision

To develop a healthy local food system for present and future generations.

Mission

To establish and cultivate a sustainable food network of local farmers and consumers who share a common commitment to healthy farms, healthy communities, and healthy people – physically, socially, and economically.

Our Goals

1. Increasing food production by educating and recruiting new producers
2. Coordinating production to meet the demands of local markets
3. Developing local processing, distribution and marketing channels
4. Educating consumers regarding the benefits of healthy local food
5. Building strategic partnerships/collaborations among stakeholders
6. Coordinating community events – tasting events, tours of farms, celebrations

Purpose of the Organization

To encourage the production, efficient marketing and distribution of foods that accommodate the preferences of local consumers who are seeking wholesome, nutritious foods which are produced in sustainable ways.

Local consumers are seeking cleanly grown foods, and are willing to pay the costs of producing such foods. These can be supplied by local farmers. The current obstacle to bringing food production up to meet the current consumer demand is not the lack of affordability but a lack of reasonable accessibility. While farmers markets and CSAs meet the needs of some, many local customers lack regular access to information about products available from local producers. Consumers are looking for seasonally produced food that is delivered on a timely basis. They want a reasonably convenient way to acquire a variety of foods of different farmers, and options with respect to pick-up or delivery and payment. The foods do not need to be as quick, convenient, and cheap as industrial foods; but a sustainable food system must be simultaneously accessible and affordable to local consumers and feasible and profitable for local farmers.

Business of the Organization

We are developing an organization and infrastructure that provides information to consumers and farmers, develops contacts and nurtures mutually-beneficial relationships among consumers and farmers in order to strengthen and diversify the local economy, strengthen the social fabric of the local community, and increase the ecological, social, and economic integrity of the food system.

We will do this by

• Linking consumers who are seeking more sustainably grown foods with farmers who share their concerns and are willing to accommodate their preferences
• Encouraging production and consumption of a diversity of local foods in order to expand the seasonal availability of a wider variety of food products that enhance the sustainability of production systems.
• The organization will encourage season extension of crop production and will rely on storable produce and animal products during non-growing seasons.
• We will facilitate the negotiation of prices that will allow farmers to cover the economic, ecological, and social costs of production plus a margin necessary to sustain a desirable quality of life. This price-point will simultaneously provide customers with the foods that meet their
  needs and preferences that are affordable, even if not as cheap as industrial alternatives. (This means that the local food network may not be able to accommodate all products farmers might want to produce or all consumers might wish to acquire.)
• The networking or facilitation functions of the organization will be carried out by one or more people. The organization, when fully functional, will be sustained economically by retaining a negotiated percentage of the total receipts collected for network customers. The percentage going to farmers must also be negotiated and sufficient to meet their needs, while maintaining negotiated prices that are affordable to consumers. This will remove any incentive to minimize prices paid to farmers or maximize prices paid by consumers, and will give the organization a motivation to recruit and sustain as many consumers and producers as it can serve effectively.
• This organization will not involve itself in creating new demand by pointing out the deficiencies of lack of sustainability of the industrial food system. We believe there are already far more potential customers than farmers willing or able to meet their needs. We will leave demand creation to others and will focus our time, energy, and financial resources on meeting the large and growing demand for healthy, sustainable foods provided by local farmers.

Values of the Organization

• We believe that access to affordable, healthy food is vital to a healthy, sustainable community.
• We believe in nurturing relationships between local producers and local consumers.
• We believe in building local capacity for year-round availability of local production for local consumption – by extending growing seasons and eating seasonally.
• We believe that local food systems create and multiply wealth for our local economy.
• We believe that many local farmers and consumers share a common commitment to sustainability, and given opportunity, will work together to create a more sustainable local food system.
• We believe a sustainable organization must be built upon a foundation of personal integrity and mutual trust, and that the shared social and ethical values essential for sustainability are essential in sustaining collaborative organizations.