Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

New standards help families get the food they demand

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March 23, 2007

CHICAGO, Illinois – A new association backed by major farm and food service interests today announced an innovative way to make sure that American farmers, ranchers and fishermen can supply the healthier, better tasting, and environmentally sustainable food consumers increasingly demand.

The group will gather food producers, handlers, retailers and food service providers in Washington, D.C., in the fall to help them take advantage of growing consumer demand for better food choices.

“Food meeting our standards will carry a seal promising consumers they’re getting food they trust from people they can trust: the family farmers, ranchers, and fishermen who live and work in rural communities near where consumers live,” Frederick Kirschenmann, a founder and board member of the Association of Family Farms (AFF), announced at the FamilyFarmed.org EXPO in Chicago.

In a new twist on conventional ways of bringing food to market, the AFF standards require businesses that buy food from farmers, ranchers and fishermen to pay those producers enough to stay in business, treating them “as strategic partners, not as interchangeable input suppliers.”

He said the AFF is publishing a working draft of its standards now in order to get wide public comment before they go into effect later this year.

The standards also require that food producers using the AFF seal are family-run enterprises that treat their workers fairly and contribute to their local communities. They must also meet labor, production, and environmental standards set by the Food Alliance, an independent certifier of sustainable agricultural practices.

The complete set of the draft standards is available on the AFF’s web site.

The AFF is inviting farmers, ranchers, and fishermen from Rural Cooperative Development Centers around the U.S. to attend the two-day conference in Washington, along with major food businesses, such as SYSCO Corporation.

Last fall, the association formed a strategic alliance with the National Farmers Union (NFU) in order to engage food producers. SYSCO, the nation’s largest food supplier to restaurants, schools, hospitals and other institutions recently gave the group a $30,000 donation in order to facilitate its work this year.

SYSCO’s Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Rick Schnieders said, “Increasingly, our customers and consumers are requesting these kinds of foods. One of SYSCO’s goals is to foster the success of family-owned farms to ensure that highly differentiated products are produced successfully for future generations.

“The vitality of rural America is crucial to providing products that can enrich menus and offer exciting food adventures for consumers who enjoy meals prepared away from home,” Schnieders said.

The Association of Family Farms is the business development arm of the Agriculture of the Middle Task Force (AOTM), originally funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and headed by Kirschenmann, former Director and currently Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, and Dr. Steve Stevenson, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Originally conceived by Larry Yee of the University of California Cooperative Extension, and Cochairman of the association, the AFF links independent regional producers to consumer markets through distribution networks that pay producers what they need in order to supply what consumers want.

“The mission of the association,” according to Yee, “is to ensure that family farms, ranches and fisheries will remain a significant component in the food system in the United States.”

AFF is currently researching prototype tests of its value-chain concept with five existing chains that supply products through Country Natural Beef in Oregon, Tallgrass Beef in the Midwest, Familyfarmed.org in Chicago, Good Natured Family Farms in Kansas City, and Heritage Acres brand from Ozark Mountain Pork in southwestern Missouri.

“Our goal is to participate in a new kind of food system,” Yee said, “one that includes a network of what we call value chains, supply chains where each participant in the chain – whether consumer, handler or producer – gains the value they need in order to continue to provide the increasingly differentiated choices that consumers now demand.”

“We are positioning our work at the heart of a new American food system – one that partners family food producers with suppliers and consumers to provide food choices of superior quality and value,” Yee said. 

For more info contact:

David Ward (202) 997-1112, david@familyfood.net

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