Fresh for All
The 6th Annual RI Local Food Forum will gather farmers, chefs, schools food services, restaurateurs and institutions to network. Share best practices for local sourcing and ways to develop our local food system. Learn how to build your menus around the added value of fresh foods from Rhode Island. Discuss the social, environmental and economic benefits of supporting local family farmers through direct food purchasing.
Getting Here
All events will be in the Andrews Dining Hall on Brown University’s Pembroke campus in Providence. The campus is accessible by car, RIPTA / Greyhound / Bonanza bus, and Amtrak / MBTA train: directions and campus map. Free time-unlimited street parking is available a few blocks north. We recommend arriving a few minutes early to find a spot. Brown also offers an on-campus pay parking lot.
With generous support from: 
Presented by
- Brown Dining Services
- Farm Fresh Rhode Island
- RI Division of Agriculture
Local Food Forum - February 3, 2010
The yearly networking event for Rhode Island food producers and buyers.
The 2010 theme is Fresh for All. Continued consumer demand and new federal policies to address nutrition and regional food security are expanding the marketplace for RI agriculture, but they also present new questions and challenges.
- Who is not being served?
- How do we scale up to meet new demand?
- How do we reconcile that:
- RI agriculture is experiencing a renaissance of growth, and it's in large part due to the renewed interest in where our food comes from and new federal policies aimed at small farmers.
- And yet only 19% of RI kids eat their veggies 5 times a day, and 65% of the veggies Rhode Islanders do eat comes from outside New England.
Questions? E-mail Jenn.
8:30 Check-in, Coffee, Tea and Pastries
9 Introduction and Welcome
- Ken Ayars, Chief of RI DEM Division of Agriculture
- Noah Fulmer, Executive Director of Farm Fresh Rhode Island
9:30 New WIC Guidelines
The WIC program has been revamped to offer expanded options for fruits and vegetables. Find out about how the changes can benefit your farm, farmers market and community.
10 Keynote Speaker + Q&A: Gus Schumacher
A Bay State native who grew up on his family's vegetable farm and went on to become USDA Undersecretary of Agriculture under President Clinton, Gus Schumacher has worked in federal and state government to open opportunities for family farms and to open low-income families' access to quality, fresh produce. He has a broad vision and deep understanding of how policymaking can rebuild robust local food economies and healthy communities.
As Massachusetts Commissioner of Agricultural Resources, Gus began a WIC Farmers Market pilot program in 1986. By 1989, his WIC model was operating in 10 states and in 1992 became the basis for the nationwide WIC Farmers Market program that exists today. The federal program has gone on to link millions of low-income families with hundreds of millions of dollars of locally grown fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets. It has bolstered markets nationwide and has especially provided support for markets in neighborhoods that otherwise have few sources of fresh produce.
Gus is currently the Chairman of the Wholesome Wave Foundation. The Foundation models a Double Value farmers' market coupon for Food Stamps EBT recipients. The creative thinking behind the new EBT project again holds great potential, not unlike the way the WIC Farmers Market program reshaped today's farms and food. Providence is a pilot city.
11 Speed Networking
Meet all the people you should know but don't yet. The farmer who will be growing your tomatoes next year will be here. As will the food service director who will buy the thirty extra bushels of corn you harvested. Priceless connections in 55 minutes or less.
12 Lunch and Mingle
Grab a bite and track down the people you circled on your list.
1 Affinity Roundtables
Forty minute gatherings centered around specific challenges or aspects of local food sourcing. Join in on the tables with the topics most pertinent to your interests. Likely topics this year include:
- Farmers Markets
- Selling to Schools, Hospitals and other Institutions
- Farm-to-Chef
- Farm-to-Cornerstores
- Community Gardens
- New WIC and EBT programs & Your Business
- Environmental Sustainability
- Beginning Farmers
- Market Mobile Wholesale Delivery
- Commercial Kitchens & Food Processing
- RI Meat
- Food for Healing
2:30 Wrap-up
Information about the Local Food Forum in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 is still available if you're curious.