Rural-Urban Interface
The goal of the Rural-Urban Interface Working Group is TBD.
The goal of the Rural-Urban interface working group is to link growing interest and demand for local foods in the Cleveland and Cuyahoga County with economic opportunities and social interactions between farmers and rural counties.
Most of the work of the Rural-Urban Interface working group is centering around the organization of a collaborative process to bring city and country in closer contact in efforts to improve local food access for city residents and businesses.
The Rural-Urban interface working group is facilitating a Regional Food Congress to be held November 7-8 of 2008. The Food Congress will be the second to be organized for Northeast Ohio. The first food congress was held in April of 2003 and involved 80 food system stakeholders from both urban and rural areas. The impetus for organizing the first food congress centered around a research project at Cleveland State University that revealed a potential $7 billion market for local food for Cuyahoga County and the surrounding six counties. About $3.2 billion of this total is spent in Cuyahoga County alone.
The Food Congress led to a strategic vision for increasing opportunities to retain local food dollars through the following four primary areas of focus:
- Increasing a culture of collaboration between organizations, government agencies, and businesses, both urban and rural;
- Increasing market demand for locally grown foods through public education, nutrition programs, and efforts to build capacity in under-served urban neighborhoods;
- Increase the supply of local foods by increasing opportunities for existing farmers and encouraging young or beginning farmers to initiate new farm or food-based enterprises;
- Improving local food infrastructure to better connect farmer, food processors, consumers, and businesses.
Current activities for the rural-urban interface group include:
- Organization of a series of concurrent, interactive workshops on November 7th focusing on a variety of local food initiatives around the region focused on introducing Food Congress participants to the many urban and rural innovations taking place to build a local food system.
- Facilitation of a local food Congress at Hiram College on November 8th to bring stakeholders from across the region to review the last five years and set the course for regional food development for the next five years.
- General cross-learning and education about local food innovations in both rural and urban areas
- Facilitation of local food councils in other counties and eventual formation of a Regional Food Policy Council for Northeast Ohio.