Linking food to people

Local food system project builds community

Field to Family Community Food Project
The Field to Family Community Food Project is an outgrowth of the Magic Beanstalk CSA effort initiated in 1995 with the help of the Kellogg Foundation-funded Shared Visions program. The CSA's purpose is to make locally grown food and fiber products available to residents in the Ames area through subscription.

Two years later, Magic Beanstalk members began the Field to Family project with these goals: to use CSA farms and distribution sites to provide more extensive food-system education and farming activities to children and families; to offer low-income families access to fresh, locally grown foods; to provide nutritional education and hands-on cooking classes to the community; and to sponsor community building events such as seasonal festivals and meals that foster appreciation and understanding for sustainable agriculture. Field to Family pursued these goals by building partnerships with local churches, social service groups, and education organizations.

In 1997, Field to Family helped Magic Beanstalk evolve from a home-food delivery operation to a central distribution site in Ames. This encouraged greater interaction among consumers and growers and made it easier for people to order products from Magic Beanstalk. With support from the Leopold Center, the Kellogg Foundation-sponsored Vision 2020 project, and several area churches, Field to Family helped 17 low-income families join Magic Beanstalk CSA. In addition, Field to Family sponsored a monthly cooking group, led by two professional nutritionists, to teach members more about how to cook with fresh, locally grown grains and vegetables. The program also sponsored educational food system activities for children and families.

"This project addresses the deeper issue of disconnection--from other people, from our food and where it is grown, and from nature--which I think is felt by everyone more and more these days," says Robert Karp, co-director of the Field to Family Project.

"Instead of just being given a food handout, low-income families are invited to participate in a community process which supports local farmers," he adds. Karp reports that Field to Family allows diverse groups of people to come together to create a bigger picture of what a healthy community can really be. Existing Field to Family partnerships link such groups as Mid-Iowa Community Action, Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Lutheran Rural Institute, People Place of Ames, and Iowa State University Extension.

In December 1997, Field to Family joined with the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture and other groups to sponsor "Farms and Communities in Partnership," a food systems conference supported by the Leopold Center and held at the Scheman Building in Ames. This meeting, attended by more than 100 producers, researchers, consumers, retailers, and restaurateurs, allowed existing Iowa groups interested in local food systems to network and explore future cooperative efforts.

Field to Family worked with the Scheman food service staff to offer a complete locally grown menu, an idea that was first implemented at Scheman for the Leopold Center
Anniversary Conference in July 1997. (The facility's food service personnel are now exploring the possibility of making locally grown food a regular menu choice for the conference center's clients.)

The Field to Family Community Food project will expand its efforts in 1998, thanks to a $135,600 Community Food Project grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant, to be administered by Practical Farmers of Iowa, will allow project members to further develop local food systems by increasing partnerships with churches, institutions, social service organizations and businesses; creating and expanding markets for locally produced foods; helping producers develop growing, marketing and business skills; and acting as a catalyst to develop new CSAs and other local food system projects.

"This new USDA grant will provide an opportunity to demonstrate the positive impact local food projects can have on a community‹both socially and economically," says Karp. "We hope the project will provide models and lessons to promote more local food systems and greater food security across the state."

Audubon County Family Farms
Several Audubon County producers, including Ted and Donna Bauer and Vic and Cindy Madsen, believed that consumers would be interested in high-quality, locally produced and processed foods that could be marketed directly from grower to consumer. Audubon County is known for its livestock farms and has state-inspected lockers for meat and poultry--strong assets in making direct marketing of meat products a reality. Cindy Madsen had directly marketed chickens for several years and knew there was a market for fresh poultry.

With assistance from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, the project attracted other area producers with direct-marketing experience. Subsequent brainstorming meetings and discussions led to the formation of Audubon County Family Farms. Backed by the Leopold Center, the group began participating in the Des Moines farmers' markets in 1997, selling meat, honey, flowers, fruits and vegetables raised and processed by sustainable methods.

"Relationship marketing"--networking and developing trust with customers at the farmers' market and in other transactions--has been important in building the reputation of Audubon County Family Farms. "We're trying to build our reputation pork chop by pork chop, or with whatever locally grown product we sell at the market," says Donna Bauer, coordinator for the project. "We invite our Des Moines farmers' market customers to come to Audubon on weekends, visit our farms and towns, and get to know us. We want to give them a chance to experience life in rural Iowa."

Audubon County Family Farms is developing a customer database, and is considering doing a quarterly newsletter and a summer harvest festival. The group is involved in the Audubon farmers' market, and it plans to pursue opportunities at other area farmers' markets. Bauer and other group members have shared information about the project at workshops and meetings, including the December Leopold Center-sponsored food systems conference in Ames.

To succeed in the long term, Audubon County Family Farms realizes that relationships need to be built not only with the consumer but among group members. "There is a real cooperative spirit with our group," says Bauer. "We enjoy having the chance to work together, to be part of something that benefits our families and the community."

The group is working hard to show that diversified family farms still have an important place in Iowa. "We want to bust the paradigm that the only way a family farm in rural Iowa can make it is to have an off-farm job," says Vic Madsen, who raises hogs. "We need to really prove it to ourselves just as much as proving to others that it will work."

Food System Pathways at UNI and Allen Hospital

How do large institutions such as University of Northern Iowa (UNI) and Allen Hospital, both in Black Hawk County, make their food purchasing decisions? If locally grown and processed foods were available, would their quality and cost attract the institution's food buyers and caterers? These are just a few of the questions asked by Kamyar Enshayan, natural sciences adjunct assistant professor at UNI and leader of a three-year Leopold Center-funded project. The project's objectives are to identify food systems that enable UNI and Allen Hospital food buyers to invest their food dollars in Iowa; support Iowa farmers, processors, and distributors; and document the obstacles preventing the establishment of those systems.

Enshayan and project assistants are learning how food service decision makers at UNI and Allen Hospital operate, what their food and client needs are, and how they make food purchases. Enshayan brought in Gary Valen, former Dean of Students at Hendrix College of Arkansas, who had helped direct a local food project for the college and developed a local food project guide for institutions, to visit with key food service personnel at both UNI and Allen Hospital.

"What we have discovered so far is that we have to build relationships," says Enshayan. "It is important that we first understand the issues and concerns employees of UNI and Allen Hospital have in developing local food systems. We can't do this overnight; in fact we learned that at Hendrix College it took three to four years to really get things going." Enshayan has facilitated grower­food buyer and caterer­food buyer discussions. He has talked with the manager of a local meat locker, and he plans to link more local producers with food buyers.

One success related to the project has been the switch to locally grown chickens and tomatoes at Rudy's Tacos, a Waterloo restaurant. Enshayan put the owner of Rudy's in touch with a northeast Iowa producer of free-range chickens as an alternative to chickens the restaurant was purchasing through a large grocery distributor. After trying just one case of chickens, the owner switched to the locally grown and processed poultry. Rudy's Tacos also plans to use local, organic tomatoes for salsa and entrees during the 1998 growing season.

Enshayan plans to use the switch to locally grown poultry at Rudy's Tacos as a case study. "One of my students will document the entire process, including costs, from egg hatch to restaurant table for both the locally grown and the large grocery distribution food pathways," says Enshayan. "It will be a 'tale of two chickens'."

Although building the producer/buyer/caterer relationships at UNI and Allen Hospital might lead to more local food purchases, Enshayan notes that having a better understanding of local food systems is the real educational outcome of the project.

"When people understand the implications of buying locally grown and processed foods, I believe in the long term we'll see a switch to these systems," he says.

For more information contact

Field to Family
Community Food Project
Robert Karp (515) 232-7162
Gary Huber (515) 294-8512

Audubon County Family Farms
Donna Bauer (712) 563-4084

Developing Food Pathways
at UNI and Allen Hospital
Kamyar Enshayan (319) 273-6895.