The yearly networking event for Rhode Island food producers and buyers.

8:30 Check-in, Coffee, Tea and Pastries

9 Introduction and Welcome

9:30 Panel on Local Food (and Compost) Distribution Models

• Louella Hill, Cheesemaker, Narragansett Creamery, Providence
  produces artisan cheeses and yogurt at an long-running RI business newly refocused on selling to the RI market, has examined the practicality and feasibility of different distribution options for getting product to local customers; has linked up with pig farmers for extra cheese scraps
• Jim Hines, President, Rhody Fresh, Foster
  works with dairy farmers under the successful milk cooperative; has expanded distribution of Rhody Fresh milk from a handful of independent retailers since it entered the market in 2005 to large grocers, food service providers, and universities; continues to increase Rhody Fresh success by fostering new buying relationships in RI
• Alex Payson, Manager, Blue State Coffee, Providence
  sources from many RI farmers and producers for their café donates all coffee grounds to RI farms and gardens; uses compostable cups and straws in an effort to eliminate landfill trash from the store; has been working toward a citywide restaurant compost system
• Jayne Senecal, Farmer, Earth Care Farm, Charlestown
  helps run a commercial compost operation that turns waste products, like quahog shells, seaweed, and town yard-waste into rich compost for sale to large-scale farmers and home gardeners; ran composting trial runs with restaurants in CT and RI; runs an organic vegetable farm

Hear from the experts. Local purchasing best practices from both farmer and buyer perspectives. New ideas and directions about distribution models for getting food from local fields to the table and then back to the fields.

11 Speed Networking

12 Lunch and Mingle

1 Affinity Roundtables - see notes from the day

2:30 Wrap-up

Notes from the Affinity Roundtables

1. Local Food and Environmental Sustainability
2. Farmers' Markets
3. The Next Generation: Growing New Farmers
4. Food Processing & the Open Kitchen Project
5. Selling to Schools
6. Local Food Distribution
7. Farms and the Community
8. Composting & Food Service

1. Local Food and Environmental Sustainability

Questions to think about

• What does Sustainable Food System look like for you in our state?
• How much food could we reasonably expect to produce in Rhode Island (what percentage) ?
• Eating lower on the food chain dramatically reduces your ecological footprint. how do we integrate this information inot a Sustainable food system in our state?
• If you could do one thing in the next year to move us toward a sustainable food system-what would it be?

Attendees

• Liberty Goodwin, TIP Toxics Info Project
• Tom Sandham, RI Conservation Districts, organizing agricultural service providers into a coalition
• David DeSmitt, Landscape & Garden Designer (organic gardens for clients)
• David Floyd, Post Carbon Rhode Island, local food as way to reduce carbon. Started a community garden at a school in Wakefield, RI
• work with local food pantry
• Holly Dion, Whole Foods Forager, Whole Foods looking for more ways to be more sustainable. Would like to offer grants and low-rate loans to local farmers.
• Lucy Yost, Student at Providence College (major: chemistry)
• Sarah Zurier, Historic Preservation Ctr., working to preserve historic farms and their outdoor spaces, research project on history of victory and community gardens

What We Need in RI

• Preserving Food: classes to help local gardeners & farmers preserve their own food
• Seed swapping among gardeners.
• Land-links for gardeners; web-based bulletin board saying what land is available, who wants to offer land, who is seeking land.
• Don't create a new web-site, just link up between others that are alike and mutually beneficial.
• Different projects are going in different directions and need to communicate
• California has identified how much arable land that could produce food. Can Rhode Island do the same?

Resources

• Gardening vs. Landscaping / Liberty is working to teach people what (non-toxic) products & materials to use for gardening.
• Tom: has resources for starting farmers. Wants to start an organization with rentable equipment for farmers or provide consultant services at reasonable prices
• www.whatgrowsonRI.com     
• www.relocalize.us

2. Farmers' Markets

Questions

• What works?
• What doesn't?
• Do you want one in your town?
• Are there too many farmers' markets in Rhode Island? Too few?
• Does success of the Wintertime Market change the landscape?

Attendees

• Virginia Houle, Hickory Hill Farm
• Currently participates in the Burrillville Market, the Rhode Island College Farmers' Market & The Wintertime Farmers' Market
• The Burrillville Market has grant and finance issues.
• There are only 10 participating vendors. She would like to see that expand.
• They would like to have a credit card machine. How? How much will it cost?
• She is interested in having any applicable grant ideas sent to her.

3. The Next Generation: Growing New Farmers

Questions to think about

• What are the barriers to new farm establishment?
• What are the methods to overcome these barriers?
• What kind of support is needed by new farmers?
• How can these resources be created/improved in Rhode Island?

Attendees

• Christy Raymond, Farmer, White Barn Farm
• Christian Kantlehner, Farmer, White Barn Farm
• Steve Croteau, Babbling Brook Farm
• Rebecca Brown, Professor, University of Rhode Island
• Michelle Sheehan, DEM and Urban Greens
• Margiana Petersen-Rockney, Brown student, beginning farmer, Rosaharn Farm
• Elise Kesseli, farmer, Arugula Nation, looking for land
• Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Director, Greenhorns Project

Challenges

• Many groups are working on same resource collection, should be working together so no one is re-inventing the wheel
• Health Insurance – huge issue for new farmers
• Hard to get supplies
• Need for “indoor work”, paperwork, website creation, maybe farmers could trade vegetables for this work?

Needs

• A place for internship postings – linking farms to colleges
• Places potential interns can apply for funds or info on workshares
• Used equipment sales page
• List of buyers who new growers can contact (interested chefs etc)
• Place for farmers to put their used equipment
• Resources for families who want to grow their own food
• Resources on farm budgeting, a place farmers can put their budget for the season that other farmers can model
• Transportation to farms, it is a problem to get people from schools or from Providence to the farm
• Place where people who want their land to be used can advertise
• Storage: shared root cellars, facility where farmers can rent by palette to store crops that they’ll sell during the winter
• Opportunities to learn from farmers outside of region, like workshops
• Gleaning Network: If a farmer has extra stuff where should they take it? RI Food Bank? Should there be a database online?
• Canning/prepared food preparation site where farmers can sell extra produce

4. Food Processing & the Open Kitchen Project

Questions to think about

• What can a community kitchen accomplish for RI’s local food system>
• How could it be used? By whom?
• What opportunities could kitchen training and access bring to your business?
• How can these resources be created and sustained?

Attendees

• David Liddle, Mount Hope Farm
• Lisa Primiano, RIDEM
• Mary Blinkhorn, Silver Moon Farm
• Jason McCartney, Farmer, Arugula Nation
• Barbara Simon-Olsen, producer, Besto Pesto
• Michelle Kozloski, farmer, Zephyr Farm grows basil for Besto Pesto
• Keri Marion, advocate, interested in baking and also teaching kids about cooking
• Wilma Bruining, caterer, Sakonnet Events, has a commercial kitchen
• Margaret Letterer, producer, Purple Pear of Providence (candied nuts)
• Alycia Metz, Market Manager: Coastal Growers’ Market, interested in teaching people how to preserve food
• Christie Moulton, Farm Fresh Rhode Island

Experience in commercial kitchens

• Dartmouth Grange: currently charges $25/hour for kitchen use and $5/shelf/week for storage
• Other kitchens: local temple charges $40/day for kitchen-use but doesn’t offer secured storage
• Demand is greatest from June-September
• Bakers may use the kitchen late at night / early morning hours
• Need a central staff person to call and say “I can’t make it this week”
• Department of Health regulations and labeling standards are confusing

Next steps/ideas

• Get staff from the DOH to run a workshop going over the regulations
• Set up ServSafe course (2 days 6 hours each)
• Canning class (SCLT will be running one this summer)
• Community cooking at the Alternative Food Coop: get people together to do their cooking for the whole week
• Bartering: farmers could get someone to process their produce (make into pickles, sauce, other value-added items) and trade them veggies for the service

Resources

• http://www.dartmouthgrange.org/
• http://www.foodinnovation.rutgers.edu/

5. Selling to Schools

Questions to think about

• What's hindering this process?
• What are the challenges to getting the students to eat local food?
• What are the challenges to getting the school to have local food?
• What are the strategies we can use to get people interested/involved in purchasing local

Attendees

• Ellen Shaw, Kids First
• Joan, Cool Breeze Farm
• Leah Sarris, Kids First
• Liz Richards, Graduate Student, Brown University
• Mike Victor, Farmer, Aquidneck Farm
• Kimberly Sporkman, Kids First
• Tim McFate, Chef, Rhode Island School of Design Portfolio Café

Challenges

• Contracts are with school food service contractor not with school
• 90% of school lunches are free
• Difficult to get kids to eat certain foods, like squash
• Need education so that once the food is in the school kids will eat it
• Food service workers lack training in food safety; may be in a hurry to get kids in and out
• Cost, distribution, storage, lack of equipment to prep foods in the school
• When kids are ready to eat vs. when they actually have a break to eat
• Kids may not have enough time at lunch to finish their meals

Potential

• Schools are a huge potential market for farmers
• Private schools are more flexible, open to buying local
• Milk, meat, and cheese: available year-round locally, missing right now from the local purchasing
• Cooking classes- example at Shea High School
• School gardens – integrate food into curriculum – example at Chariho
• Eating and education: Aquidneck Farms is interested in doing educational programs, hosting field trips, but problems are with schools lack of funding
• Pilot program: independent school will try to cater food to ethnic diversity of students

6. Local Food Distribution

Questions

• How does local food currently get to buyers and eaters?
• Introduction of Farm Fresh's Market Mobile Farm to Chef program
• How can we further improve local food distribution?

Attendees

• Devon Whitney-Deal, Be a Local Hero Member Services Coordinator, CISA
• Evan Aird, regional planning, UMass Amherst
• Julia Grimaldi - Culinary Tourism Coordinator, Mass Dept. of Ag
• Ann-Marie Bouthilette and Louise, Blackbird Farm, North Smithfield, RI
• Kylie Charter, Chef, RISD
• Matt Martin, Chef, RISD
• Winifred DeCoster, Captain's Concierge
• Jen Huntley-Corbin, Farm Fresh RI
• Mike Garvey, Farm Fresh RI

Discussion of the pilot season of the Market Mobile project

Input from Buyers and Producers

• Farm Fresh and the Market Mobile program has opened a lot of doors for Blackbird Farms, new retail/wholesale possibilities.
• Thursday delivery would boost sales.
• This program keeps farmers and buyers from driving all over the state.
• Chefs and restaurants have needs and wants. Try to find out what those are.
• There may be more challenges as the orders grow really large.
• Possible solution: have more people consider picking up their orders, instead of delivery
• Farmers will need those want lists from chefs/buyers for future plantings.
• Newport would like to organize a group ordering system to participate in this Market Mobile program: How can they spread the word to other restaurants in Newport?
• Western Mass has not started anything like this yet: there is an independent businesswoman who does some delivering of local foods, not the same scale.
• Buyers like NOT having a traditional middleman.
• Labels from individual farms placed on their items or boxes would be very helpful in acknowledging the items in the restaurants and school cafes/cafeterias.

7. Farms and the Community

Questions

• How often do you work with the local community/on a local farm?
• Do you want to work with them more?
• What are the obstacles that prevent you from working together more often?
• What are the benefits?
• What can be done to improve your relations?

Attendees

• Pete Rundlett, Moonstone Farm, runs a CSA
• Emily Viggicno, Brown University
• Al Bettencourt, RI Farm Bureau
• Leo Pollock, SCLT, increasing awareness of farms to increase farm revenues
• Megan Kershaw, Casey Farm, runs a CSA

Current Conditions

• Save farmers, not just farms
• inheritance tax will hurt farms a lot – many RI farmers currently in 60s
• trying to make it financially easier to be a farmer through tax cuts
• tax credits for cisterns, tax-exempt animal feed, laws they’re trying to pass
• agreement: cisterns should definitely move, widely used

Managing community members on the farm

• Moonstone Farm has a CSA in South County with 100 members
  • 23 work shares (working for $50 fee vs. $550 outright share)
  • 4-5 people helping every day of the week, ranging from no experience to experienced home growers
  • Farmer becomes less of laborer, more of manager because everyone needs instruction
  • next season: ask for more money, more time devoted to farming
  • offer advancement opportunities for successful and useful people
• Build a long-term community of employees
• Farmers are learning how better to work as a manger
• Suggestions: having open volunteer days especially on big, group-friendly projects, example potato harvest
• Tap into different demographics – low income, minority
• Organizing field trips. bringing farmers to schools
• tying in farm field trips to schools’ mandatory curriculum
• Work with Kids First – local food in schools

Community Outreach

• Public Relations Campaign, Radio PR campaign and maybe a video about agriculture in RI to distribute to schools
• Last summer RI Farm Watch (cable show)
• What about reaching out to immigrant communities?
• There is trouble finding legal immigrant farm workers, but immigrants are often more in touch with farming than many others
• Immigrants may not have the same knowledge of organic growing and environmental concerns, needs to be an education side of it
• chemical agriculture can also endanger the community

8. Composting & Food Service

Questions

• What opportunities can a viable local composting system create?
• Do we have the infrastructure to create such a system?
• What is present and what needs to be created?
• What is the ownership model for this system? (Private, cooperative, community)
• How can this be created & sustained?

Attendees

• Marjorie Jensen, Wingover Farm
• Michael Urso, Chez Pascal
• Claudia Avant
• Greg Garrit, Green Party
• Ron Mucci, Stone Croppe Farm
• Donna Ryan, Stone Croppe Farm
• Katie Fournier, RISD design
• Virginia Houle, Hickory Hill Farm
• Richard Stainer

Issues

• Looking for someone to pickup compost
• Researching compost ideas & technologies
• 3 years of funding for research by the Environmental Council of RI
• Farms looking to get manure while meat producers are trying to get rid of manure
• Need to get seeds and meat out of compost piles because worms cannot break them down
• Separation of meat and food scraps and green material is seldom done
• What works on a small scale doesn’t work on a large scale
• coffee grinds and food waste from the home vs. from a restaurant
• Trust is a big issue because people do not compost correctly or supply correct material
• Worms can’t survive the winter outside must be brought inside

Current Practices

• Mucci uses worm composting: gets 1 bucket of compost from coffee roasters everyday
• There is a green Dunkin Donuts in FL that uses worm composting
• Sewage plants supply sludge which is not suitable for compost used on farms growing food, but can be used by landscapers for flowers
• Richard Stainer - Magic compost potions, Red Wigglies do not belong in garden
• Bike Bay 100 families trained well and paid $1 per week to truck compost to Southside community garden
• Grass clippings from trustworthy sources
• Earth Care Farm heats compost to 130 degrees to kill wheat seeds and pathogens, compost costs $60 cubic yard
• Composting fish is complicated, adding fish increases heat but must be done on a large scale and produces large quantities, its hard to get high temps in large areas

Ideas

• People should have to pay as they throw out their garbage
• We need motivation for people to learn how to compost from their homes, learn from the internet or through workshops

Information about the Local Food Forum in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 is still available if you're curious.