In November of 2008, Bay Localize joined Community Alliance With Family Farmers, ICLEI and Bon Appetite to produce a Bay Area Food Forum titled, ?Making Local Food a Reality: Procurement & Policy Opportunities for the Bay Area?.

The event brought together local farmers, institutional food service managers, chefs, legislative aides, and government representatives. The event showcased best practices in local food sourcing policies for institutions in both the private and public sector around the Bay Area and to highlighted available resources, including non-profits, consultants, local food distribution entities, and ground-breaking model policies.

The event will facilitated focused conversation about County-specific opportunities to move local food policy forward and to inspire action to move the existing general interest from Slow Foods Nation and Local Food Month, into tangible action-oriented policies. These sessions featured short presentations by those involved in local food sourcing and then followed with facilitated group conversation.

The Food Forum notes can include the outcome of best practices, models and ideas.? Please feel free to download the notes and peruse the document at your leisure.

Morning Panel: Best Practices in Local Procurement Policy in the Public and Private Sectors

Moderator: Aliza Wasserman, Community Alliance with Family Farmers

The Bay Area Food Forum was designed to keep the discussions from Slow Food Nation and the Bay Area local food month (October) moving forward and harnessing the collective energy and attention local food is currently receiving.? What are the real next steps? How can we operationalize these energies and work to forge local sourcing in institutions? How can we make local food accessible to everyone?? How can we bring down the premium on local foods especially in the face of current economic recession??

Kari Hamerschlag provides technical guidelines to help local governments start buying local and sustainable foods.
What is going on in the Bay Area in terms of procuring local foods?
Sustainable Food Procurement Initiative: prioritizing procurement of local foods for government and other public sectors
20 million tons of food produced within 100 miles of San Francisco; local governments pioneering sustainability initiatives to take advantage of this region
San Mateo green initiatives bringing local and sustainable food into their efforts to address climate change policies; will develop working group to address food purchasing in their food service entities
2005: San Francisco passed Fair Trade and Organic Foods Resolution: maximize purchase of fair trade and organic foods. As a result/follow-up, SF established a task force to develop a food policy for the city to focus on the procurement of local sustainable foods; the policy forces traceability?where does the food come from?? SF Health department has a sustainable foods policy?stipulating that the food is produced sustainably, locally, free of pesticides, minimally processed, and meets animal humane standards
2007: Marin created a county-wide plan to develop and adopt a food policy and procurement plan to incorporate sustainable foods into the public sector
Contra Costa passed a resolution to create a healthier more sustainable food system; to increase access of healthy food to underserved communities, strengthen the local agriculture community; create food policy and procurement plan to incorporate local and sustainable food in the county hospital and other appropriate facilities
Action Item 17 of The Urban Environmental Accords: related to healthy and organic foods to ensure that 20% of all city facilities including schools serve locally grown and organic foods within 7 years (San Jose and San Francisco putting this accord on the top of their agenda)
Challenges:
Federal Ag Policy must be addressed; healthy sustainable food systems are ignored while agribusiness profits
Dwindling budgets
Necessary Actions:
Local Governments: Climate Action Plans, how can governments reduce their carbon footprints? We must incorporate food into these plans! Food has been left out of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policies developed by counties? food should be there!

Jared Lawson is the co-director at Pie Ranch, a working educational farm near Pescadero that regularly hosts youth from San Francisco and the Bay Area. (http://www.pieranch.org/)

The Delicious Revolution in Berkeley
Reaction against the industrial food served in schools
Garden-Nutrition Education Programs
Community Food Project to work at city and school district level
Food Policy Council Start-Up Steps:
Small meeting to develop a list of who should be involved: anti-hunger advocates, farmers, gardeners, sustainable ag advocates, labor organization reps, neighborhood reps, religious organizations, etc.
Sent out invitation to bring these stakeholders together
Outside facilitator to make stakeholders comfortable
Assembled meeting ingredients (food, space)
Orientation to forge community and vision, which resulted in a steering committee to create a mission statement to build a local food system based on sustainable and regional agriculture and to ensure that all citizens of Berkeley have access to that food
Look at counties General Plans to address local food policies
Strategies:
Join with neighboring food shed municipalities in the purchase of agricultural conservation easements in neighboring rural communities where feasible?how can urban centers leverage support to protect land?
Lessons Learned:
teeth or no teeth to get policy through?
The importance of process, need to galvanize the whole community rather than strategies pursued only be leadership
farm based education is the key?excite the young generation about the food they are eating, create a value and appreciation system among children for locally grown sustainable foods

Ida Shen is the Assistant Director and Executive Chef at Cal Dining UC Berkeley. (http://caldining.berkeley.edu/)
What has been going on at UC Berkeley?
???? Finding good, clean and fair practices at Cal has been the goal; rewriting the RFP (Request For Proposals)
???? Policy starts with the paperwork
???? Working with large scale distributors to start asking: Where does this food come from? Asking large-scale distributors to start tracking their food.
???? Difficulties of large institution?food can?t come from only one farm and often is sourced from many different farms, requires daily deliveries, consistency
???? Cal Dining?s Budget: saved money on the produce side by bringing in whole produce and not value added products?(broccoli heads vs. pre-cut broccoli) and processing in house; but with eggs, the costs doubled (the farmers getting paid a fair price, students pushed for them, farms are known); organic milk led to a 25% increase in costs
???? UC Dining has a goal of sourcing 25% locally grown produce, year round
???? Cal?s partnership with CAFF helped bring in more farmers, made ordering locally easier, year round, set up a produce box reuse plan.
???? Educating students as well as to what is seasonal: watermelon is not available in February; working with chefs to create appealing dishes with seasonal produce

Questions:
Q: What level of detail did Cal request from national distributors?
Ida: Cal put it into contracts that food has to be from certain areas and the distributors have to mention the name of the farm

Q: How much were students involved in the process?
Ida: The students pushed for the change and it started with the certified organic salad bar: the oils, the spices, the croutons, the veggies.? The salad bar increased sales and drew a lot more support from students and staff

Q: What are labor implications of cutting out processed foods in Cal?s dining halls?
Ida: Cal did not hire any more staff, they just trained employees. Volume is a key: minimal processing in a dining hall serving 3000 people whereas the dining halls serving 400 people might take more care in crafting meals.

Q: How does providing more satisfying food to the students work into the revenue stream?
Ida: Customer satisfaction brings back customers; there is a high rate of off-campus meal plan purchasing; 2500 meal plan holders outside of required meal plan holders.

Q: How does city policy inform state policy?
Kari: Success at the local level will hopefully build up support and policy at the state and federal level.? At the state level, if it?s price equivalent and it comes from CA, states will purchase those goods. US Congress has recently supported a local food-purchasing program in their cafeteria.

Morning Roundtables
1. City-to-City on Municipal and Regional Opportunities
Moderator: Kari Hamerschlag, Program Manager, Green Purchasing Institute

Chris Geiger is a agricultural ecologist, works at the DOE managing the city?s IPM (Integrative Pest Management) and green purchasing programs, and is a member of the Mayor?s interdepartmental working group addressing climate change. (http://www.sfenvironment.org/)
What?s happening in the DOE around local food procurement?
SF had a sustainability plan over 10 years ago with a huge amount of public participation. The challenge is to minimize environmental impact, promote public health measures, provide nutritious food, and to feed the hungry.
We do a lot of feeding the hungry in SF, and we can?t pick out one piece of the picture and not have it connect with everything else.? We can?t require everyone to buy organic food and still have the same amount of money going to hunger programs.
The Green Business program gives credit to business?s offering 25% local or fair trade on their menu. We?ve been working with CAFF to hold them accountable.?
We?ve been working local food into lease language of city buildings
At North Light Court in SF, serving local food in the restaurant was incorporated into the lease language.? The Dept of Real Estate is on board to use lease language to incorporate more local food.
We?re in conversation with the SF Wholesale Produce Terminal.? The next lease for the property comes up in a few years, it will include space for sustainable food.? In the meantime, the conversation is happening.
The SF Health Commission is interested in policy around local food
In terms of the city itself we?re talking about hospitals and jails.
Hospitals are the lion?s share.
Schools are separate entity, The Mayor?s office has no control other than to give them money sometimes.? It?s unfortunate, because they should be a real priority.
As budgets go tighter, things devolve to cheapest possible option.
It?s a huge challenge, Paula Jones (Director of SF Food Systems) has been working hard to hook up schools with fresh food distribution. They managed to source Protected Harvest certified stone fruit for summer.
All organic lettuce at 37 schools in the salad bar
Food to Flowers program composting in schools
Laguna Honda, SF?s main public hospital, serving 2,700 meals a day, is now a leader interested in sourcing local in hospitals. Steve Koneffklatt, the food services director, now uses Monterey Aquarium standards for sustainable fish.

Q: What can we do now??
Chris: A small but important step is the move toward traceability. Food sourcing will be coming up in executive orders soon, wouldn?t it be great if we could just ask for information.? It sends a signal.? And we should coordinate when we can!

Kari: How can we synergize our efforts to have a better impact?? SF is one out of hundreds of clients.? Sysco and other distributors are making some of these moves at the top level, they see the trends.? The local Sysco probably doesn?t have a clue.

Linden Skjeie works on San Jose?s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policies, and has worked with Healthy Silicon Valley for 10 years. (http://www.sanjoseca.gov/esd/natural-energy-resources/epp.htm)
There has been a big impetus from the UNEP Urban Environmental Accords (UEA) that San Jose signed onto
Action 17 of the UEA (which states that cites should ?Promote the public health and environmental benefits of supporting locally grown organic foods.? Ensure that twenty per cent of all city facilities (including schools) serve locally grown and organic food within seven years.?) helped put local food on the map
SJ already has Environmentally Preferable Procurement (EPP) in place.? After signing on to UEA, we added food language policy to it.
Also have green building policy. New buildings must be either LEED-certified Silver or Gold, and get a check off in the LEED criteria for serving a certain % of local, organic food
San Jose is member of Green Cities, CA, allows us to pool collective buying power ? For example we banned the use of municipal funds to buy bottled water, and food is on the agenda for spring 2009
Green Purchasing Institute has money to help institutional buyers.? We set a baseline and hired an intern to do the groundwork, met with the convention center, the police station, the Senior Meals Program, the libraries, to learn what kind of food is being sold currently.
We established an open purchase order with Veritable Vegetables for the Senior Meals Programs.? Then realized that they weren?t actually buying, so we needed to keep after them to get them to actually buy from the PO
The Senior Meals Program consists of 12 different meal sites in SJ each serving between 50 and 70 people each per day.? It?s a total of 700 meals per day on a budget.
The chef at the San Jose Convention Center was enthusiastic about serving local foods. He now has an open purchase order with ALBA organics, he gets what he can and then gets the balance from others, and advertises which farms food comes from
Challenges
Not a lot of vendors
When there are multi year contracts it is hard to change the language for local, or organic
The libraries just put in a RFP (Request for Proposal) for 9 years, we did get some language re: local foods in there
The costs can be higher. Vincent, the chef at the Convention Center buys only the things he can afford
The volume needed isn?t always available, and it can be challenging to get delivery on the schedule that works for us
How do we measure success? Can we show over it?s lifetime that sustainable food is cheaper? E.g. in switching to alternative fuel vehicles, if look at the life cycle cost we can show it will be lower.
What if there were new standards ?the cost per nutrient instead of per calorie, or something like that?
We really need to think about how cities can work together to be more effective.
There is Green Cities, CA, as well as Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG.) What if we had a Bay Area green cities coalition?

Valerie Love is an Agricultural Marketing Associate in Contra Costa County. She has also worked managing farmers? markets .(http://contracostafarms.com/)
What policies can we create to connect the food systems and promote economic vitality of rural and urban communities?
Works in east Contra Costa county, less than 50 miles from here. It?s an unsung resource of the Bay Area, with good water and excellent soil.? Agricultural production includes sweet corn, stone fruit, olives, grapes and tomatoes
But recently the area has gotten more attention for its rapid development ? Pop went from 7,500 in 1990 to 50,000 today pop
Land for residential subdivision has 10 times the value of farmland, the common wisdom held that there was no future for farmland: The citizens have voted to maintain a County Agricultural Core
BALT is a non-profit founded to preserve farmland and to promote the economic vitality of local agriculture
What do farmers want help with? 1) Sensible zoning in the Ag Core; 2) Help marketing their products
When the county formed the Ag Core, it was narrowly defined.? Zoning did not allow farmers to respond to changing market conditions.? They needed direct marketing and to sell value added products
But the zoning only allocated small amount of space for farm stands, and disallowed production and sale of jams or jellies
BALT worked with city, and board of supervisors then unanimously approved expanded definitions of farm stands, and to allow processing.
AB2168 amended state Food, Ag and Health codes to expand the definition of roadside stands, and we continue to promote flexible zoning laws
Recently BALT has been working to establish agricultural tourism.
As for marketing, in 2004 BALT partnered with CAFF to become the Contra Costa county coordinator for the Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign. We use the BFBL logo and marketing materials, took chefs to farms, got the county board of supervisors to sign onto the BFBL plan
Contra Costa also has very urban areas, Supervisor Gioia in Richmond ? which is urban and very food insecure, along with Supervisor Piepho of east CC county came together and created CSA program to bring produce from family farms to low income urban families
With Green Purchasing Institute county staff, hospitals, and jails can make buying local affordable and logistically feasible in terms of deliveries and volumes, etc.
The city made a connection with CAFF?s Growers? Collaborative to link onto their distribution system
We?ve been trying to cut costs for partners with gleaned fruits, following Marin Organic?s farm to school programs using gleaning
A challenge is trying to create the necessary flexibility and local marketing infrastructure

Kari: Contra Costa is a great case of a county that has a strong Ag base as well as urban communities that need access. Marin is another one.

Jason Mark is also the author of Building the Green Economy, an editor as Earth Island Journal, and a co-manager at Alemany Farm. (http://www.alemanyfarm.org/)
Alemany farm is 4 acre farm inside San Francisco, receives support from Dept of Env, working on boosting food security
Was appointed to be on peak oil task force. The question has been: How in this era of abundance (of local food) do we make sure that there is also equity? This is something Alemany Farm is focused on.
On the Peak Oil Task Force we look at a different question: how to we prepare for an era of scarcity?
Irony is that local food will get easier as everything else gets harder.? There will be a national incentive, as fossil fuels dwindle, to create local, bio-regional foodsheds, and we won?t be able to afford getting grapes in the winter from Chile
The Task Force currently has draft recommendations, but theye?re getting close to the final draft
In terms of city-to-city collaboration: How do we as a region makes sure our food system is resilient?
Recent American Farmland Trust study of the SF foodshed found that within 100 miles of the Golden Gate Bridge we are growing 20 million tons of food a year.? But it?s not a complete basket, there are gaps. E.g. we have a lot of strawberries and salad mix, but need more grains, sustainable eggs and meat
One challenge is that land is very expensive
Don't know when to expect peak oil to hit, and opinions vary ? now? 2015? 2525?
Farmers will concentrate on growing what is most lucrative, esp when development is pressing against you. E.g. you?ll focus on almonds instead of meat which takes acreage
Ideas:
We need to guard agricultural land
Ag easements, county policies that would reward farming, especially sustainable farming, and farm providing local for local markets.?
In Woodbury county, Iowa farmers get a tax rebate for organic practices
These policies need to happen on an ABAG level, not in individual counties
Strengthen Regional Transport
Once we have more ag land and farmers feel secure, we need to get the food to market
18 to 20 % of fossil fuels used go to agriculture, this includes production and transport. Can we rebuild transportation network to be more sustainable as well? Rebuild old railway and water transport networks. We can seem the remnants of these networks now ? the old railway network in Bayview neighborhood in SF
Increase food production in urban and suburban communities
SF has the second highest pop density in US, but there are still 500 vacant acres within the city. 300 on public land, 140 in private vacant lots, and some park land
What if we have everyone using their backyards, through victory garden programs to grow a modest amount of their food, say 20%. That relieves some of the pressure on the rural communities
Depends upon city law makers for appropriate zoning and training, and on public interest
Volunteers come to Alemany all the time to get their hands dirty, can cities make an investment in education around food production
These ideas offer an alternative to the gloom and doom that often accompanies peak oil conversations, this is an opportunity as much as a challenge!

Kari: Jason pointed out 3 strategies: 1) Secure farmland; 2) Strengthen regional transport networks;? 3) Urban food production. What do people working in cities think is most promising?

Chris: We need to do better with farmers? markets and securing urban agriculture. We have the ability to tell dept what to buy if they buy within the city system, but we are still limited in terms of food buying.? One promising thing is to work from below on economic incentives.? We can use federal bills on food, energy, conservation and health.

Linda Fong, American Dietetic Association
Around education, it?s important to educate kids, sometimes they just aren?t interested.

Nicole, City of Richmond, 5%/Urban Tilth
We don?t want to impose, but we do need to impress upon inner city kids that there is a possibility of scarcity
Can do it without doom and gloom, in city community gardens where people can harvest food, the policy change is necessary, but it can start right in your own backyard, we?re working to get people out into community gardens in the most violent areas of the city.? We take scarcity seriously but it?s very complex
Sometimes feel inundated with policy pieces, seeing a garden upon getting home is a real change to see

Kari: But policy creates opportunity for systemic change, and allows the projects to happen. How does Richmond support these efforts at the policy level?

Nicole: We?ve signed onto the UEA, we have a green ordinance, and now have a progressive mayor, as well as new Green city council person, Jeff Ritterman, a member of physicians for social responsibility
-There has been a lot of activism in Richmond, which has been so dominated by Chevron especially, signing on to the UEA as seen as relatively conservative, the new city council presents a new opportunity. In the past Environmentally Preferable Purchasing has been discussed but has been hard to push through

Jason: Some of these ideas don?t require a huge policy overhaul.
Out of SF General Fund $1bilion budget, $3-400K goes to urban garden education, a fraction of 1%, just doubling that would be huge
There?s a ripple effect -the citizens? consciousness impacts what they want to buy, can trickle up to city purchasing

Ellen, member of Berkeley oil independence task force, public school teacher. Has been working on draft report for City of Berkeley, met with mayor?s staff and presented initial recommendations
Some things don't cost any money
What if public landscaping was edible? Although city complains about labor issues, etc.
But if more people demand food locally, then city will be more interested in investing
We wanted to put a moratorium on developing in open space with good sunlight.
The politics around development is complex, but what if we used that land in the meantime, with peak oil that development might never happen

Linden:
We have coyote valley in south San Jose, there was a huge planning process to build a new city there, with small area allocated for green building.? With foreclosure debacle that plan has gone by the wayside, we might be really grateful to have that land for agriculture.
Closer to urban center is Martial Cottle farm, the last remaining heir to that land is in his 70?s, and has bequeathed that land to the city as an urban farm
It will have community gardening space, open agriculture, etc, with markets right there, so that is a really exciting project ? I?m thinking can produce be used in Senior Meals Program? In the Convention Center?
Let?s say in Santa Clara county we?ve got 2 convention centers, institutional food for the county, what if everyone came together with organic producers, and all planned together for what?s needed and what can be produced

Contract growing: Has anybody heard of that being done successfully in best interest of farmers and institutions?
Ex: East Coast CSA model, farm in Amherst, MA. A board of directors decide what to grow for the CSA.? Something like that could happen where a city hired the farmers to grow what they needed

Kari: When buyers call now and want 8 boxes of kale, if there are only 5, they just get 5, what if it was set up ahead of time? ALBA promotes that as something they will do ? customize production.

Janet, BALT: There?s also volume issues when trying to supply the larger institutions. That conversation needs to take place so there is certainty, for both farmers and buyers

Marcia, Pesticide Action Network: What about the discussion of labor and farmworkers? rights? It?s not as easy to check off the box, as with organic. There?s not the same kind of certification, is it beginning to come up in the conversation?

Chris: I would love to be able to include that, but city purchasers need that certification, that check-off box. Hospital purchasing is done through group purchasing with 200 other hospitals, and influence is difficult without that check-off box. There are things on the horizon with new standards

Marcia: Hopefully Domestic Fair Trade will be certifiable soon

Chris
No Sweatshop ordinance, a national level campaign, Tom Hayden is working on putting ordinance through in several cities; on first go round asked for too much, have made revisions, going to try it again
Great need for those certifications
Good guide.com ? web projects that pull together info about various certifications to put it all in one place, starting to work on food
They take into account Corporate Social Responsibility Index ? it?s a scale of 200, have to score 85% to be considered

Jason: They?ll be doing on site, unannounced monitoring, integrating social and environmental standards

Kari:
we do have this lack in terms of certification
There?s conventional, then there?s organic ?but doesn?t include labor
In between, we have Food Alliance and Protected Harvest. In CA there are very few farms that are Food Alliance certified, it includes weak labor standards
There is a new certification from Green Seal, they are now certifying food service.
Sustainable purchasing is a top priority for certification, currently open to public comment through end of the month
We need something intermediate that show farmers are moving towards sustainability
Leonardo Academy has rigorous 3rd party process for establishing certification standards, they have the best labor standards that we?ve seen, except for domestic fair trade, which is always going to be a really small percentage of the market

Q: How do people respond to these plans with recent budget cuts?
Linden: They try to find things that are comparable in price. Challenge is just to keep after purchasers, after signing on to buy local and sustainable. We keep meeting them, asking where we?re at, etc.
Kari: We need to focus on items that are comparable

2. Procurement Table: What is the Cost of ?Going Local? and what can Your Institution Do about It?
Moderator: Gail Feenstra, Food System Analyst, University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program

Jenny Huston is Director of Culinary Enterprise Bay Area community services. (http://www.bayareacs.org/)
Focus on social justice and food systems
BACS ? the only supplier of meals on wheels in the Bay Area (congregate programs as well)? Been working there for a year.? They are sourcing locally ? corporate partner with CAFF went from 20 to 25% local overall. Meats poultry are at 50% local- going for 85%
They are 47% underfunded? - catalyzed their social services (impacts program)??? They don?t operate moderated diets. They need to have notice of what?s available, and nutritional content info set 60 days in advance They are managed by Alameda County and USDA ? (4 oz of protein, veggie, starch 750 calories min. per day)
Costs have only increased at 1% in the past year going local.

Kathleen Reed is in a newly created position at Kaiser Permanente National Nutritional Services, and is focusing on costs and benefits of local foods service
They have a partnership with CAFF and the Growers Collaborative and have begun purchasing from small family farms.
Program started with fruits and vegetables
Kaiser sources about 250 tons of produce per year and 60-70 tons of that is local, which is very small
They?ve been working with Aliza to craft the pricing ? $1200 per site total produce spend in CA? $6-700,000 total cost for produce
Total food spending in CA is $6.2 million
Local vs. non-local: local has been 25% more

Q.? How does Kaiser define as small farmer ?
Kathleen:? With CAFF ? a small farm is 50-100 acres ? others go to 250 or over. In 1973 it all changed ? there weren?t thousands of acres of farms at that point.

Q. How do you define local?
Kathleen: They do by CAFF standards.? 250 miles ? but the criteria is flexible ? regionally is local ? so 300 miles give or take?? As long as it?s a regional distribution ? but this depends on the institution ? some people only consider 50 miles local.
Comment ? Wheat ? $1.75/lb. local cost Guistos in SF runs their mill on locally sourced wheat ? but it is not organic

Q.? What is the goal ? a set target for local content?
Kathleen: There was no goals ? just trying to see what they could do.? Each client ? you have to work with them, within their parameters.?

Q.? How do you work with inst. when the costs can be so high ? such as 26%
A ? 26% was actually the most expensive ? the range really varies.? 10-25% is the typical range.? 20% of the items can actually be cheaper. Consult with where you can find local ? look around at your areas pricing and match that with the rates of your local farmers

Q. Can you keep the costs down by going through a large distributor?
Jenny: We did, but we are trying to get out of it ? we do not have any contracts. You can contract ? contracting may not be as easy with smaller systems. When you have many independent contracts, management becomes burdensome, consolidator helps cut down on transaction costs. NGO ? farming org. ? from Salinas ? but they will not come over the bridge ?

Bulk meal programs, meal services for offices, -- they fill in the gap for in house meal programs at offices that are shutting down for budget shortfall. We are under contract with Oakland to provide a living wage, everything we do is about building up the local economy.?

Q. How do you justify going local?? (Why?)
Kathleen: Commitment to supporting small local family farms ?because Kaiser started small ? they have that kinship.? We did a baseline study looking at food miles ? that showed how reducing miles travels could reduce greenhouse gases ? so it was a commitment to mitigating global warming. Also because we?re a health care institution, we have constraints in terms of costs ? but cafeteria was more flexible.

Q. Did you notice an increase in demand?
Kathleen:? Satisfaction ? people were very happy with the fruit. The improvement in the quality of food was part of the justification. Hospitals are generally located in places where local food isn?t that accessible.
Comment from audience ? surveys should be done.

Comment ? Health and nutrition/local food --? we have data that shows their clients health has improved since they went local. We have data ? but we need a PhD/Grad. Study to analyze it ?

Q: What is the cost on a global level?
Kathleen: We don?t know ? we haven?t done that kind of study. Kaiser ? is developing a business case to determine the dollar value in terms of the costs and benefits of sourcing local. 9% increase in food costs ? in US in 2006. This year they?re up 6.2% - so ? since beginning of 07 our costs have increased by around 15%. The difference is that processed foods are very expensive. When they switched from Uncle Ben?s rice mix to scratch based rice for example, their costs went down.

Jenny: We are investing in labor, and reducing costs by reducing waste.

Kathleen: A number of hospitals are establishing compost programs, but then again ? compost programs may not be local ? Alameda Co. compost goes to Davis, SFs goes to Vacaville.? Because those two counties can?t certify it within it?s borders.

Q: What about meat ? how can you switch that?
Miguel Villareal: I stopped using USDA meat ? we source chicken products, veggie burgers which is easy to source local ? we just dropped beef and red meat. CA School Nutrition Association -- We are working on a bill AJR69 passed by CA now going to George Miller ? collaborate with congress to take unified message.
We need a funding source. The whole process of scratch is complex? You have to map out what you?re going to do when you?re going to do it. Etc.

Luisa with SJ State: In the dining commons? with social marketing we are using signage to point out how much food is wasted with the agribusiness. Model is to reduce portion sizes.

Project Open Hand: The culture on the demand side is the difficulty. They didn?t like the local bread ? It?s hard when your own staff eats fast food/junk food. When menu is switched to veggie ? people complain ? veggie is considered poor people?s food. One tactic is to just keep on putting it out there?

There are CSAs for meat. We are launching a new program called ?balanced menus project? Reduce the amount of meat that is served.? So meat is no longer the center of the plate.? We hope that thru the savings gained with this program ? they can increase their purchasing of higher quality locally based foods. As long as protein is there ? sodium, Vitamin A & E ? local dietician requires this.

Jenny: Our menu content is Dry Land Farm ? not cert. organic ? we?re getting a pallet of potatoes a week. Meat and Poultry is 100% as is milk. We are going to switch from Sysco to a local food service.? We?re going to switch to Clover.? But Clover doesn?t do ? pint organic.? Demand the pints in organic!

3. Food Security Table: New Models for Making Local Food Accessible
Moderator: Hank Herrera, Project Manager, HOPE Collaborative

Willow Rosenthal is a founding member and former director of City Slicker Farms(www.cityslickers.org
How do you make local & organic accessible to people living in poverty?
Very different set-up to middle-income people purchasing local
Unable to access food yet tons of empty land, urban production important and least developed part of sustainable food system;
City Slicker Farms is a grassroots project in West Oakland
Began as empty lot gardening but needed a way to involve community. Lots of agricultural knowledge in community, barrier was actually expense of growing food, also gap generation that had lost ag knowledge; have built approx 100 backyard gardens in W. Oakland;
Market-based programs not appropriate for people living in poverty. W.R. went on fact-finding mission to Venezuela to see what community-based strategy looks like when scaled-up and with gov support, strategy is two-pronged: support for ag-entrepreneurs & support for home gardens in impoverished areas;
Self-sufficiency model takes food out of cash economy, study on farmers markets in low-income communities: markets don?t work in low income communities, providing enough organic fresh fruits & vegetables for those living in poverty would require enormous gov subsidy under market-based approach.

John Curry is the Food Resource Manager for the San Francisco Food Bank(http://www.sffoodbank.org/)
Food Banks not part of capitalist system, Food banks originally consisted of damaged goods, now focus on staples;
SF Food Bank got forward contract on rice from Sacramento valley, allowed them to move XX lbs of rice to constituents in SF, both given away and sold at subsidy to other orgs,
so much volatility in rice market last year so they locked in $.27/lb with grower; grower did knowingly lose some profit since price went up;
Would not have gotten deal if not local: people knew SFFB?s work & deal based on personal relationships, also saved on shipping costs.
use volunteers to re-bag rice from large bags to family size
12 m lbs of produce moved last year in addition to staples, comes through CA Association of Food
Dealer now bought out by Australian form so now temporarily priced out,
SFFBanks farm-to-family program: 90% CA sourced
most of SFFB?s produce from Stockton area, much of produce donated and much more sold at below cost, local produce & rice have allowed them to continue feeding a lot of people

Peter Rudnick, SAGE: Sustainable Agriculture Education; Peter. worked at Green Gulch farm for many years, also SF?s Garden Project.
Gleaning is hugely important, 50% of food wasted, every farm has waste;
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission? had large piece of land 250 acre parcel
Garden Project collaborated with Sibella Kraus of SAGE: resulted in 18 acre Sunol Agricultural Park (http://www.sagecenter.org/Projectareas/AgParks/Sunol.htm)
Leased from SFPUC for 9 years, aim is sharing resources among farmers working land,
Currently 6 farmer tenants; farmers sell their products at farmers? markets and produce stands, to restaurants, and through CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Boxes in Oakland, Alameda and Pleasanton. They also host work days and field trips for schools and garden groups, and offer internships for youth and college students.
???

Hank Herrera is Project Manager for the HOPE Collaborative(http://www.oaklandfoodandfitness.net/home)

?HOPE: Health for Oakland?s People and Environment, mission: create access to healthy local food, create sustainable economic development, create space for movement and healthy living, all in Oakland?s most challenged neighborhoods;
Flatland side of 580 predominantly people of color & poor (median income ? that of Oakland hills), dramatic disparities, approx 300,000 people in flatlands, 2 supermarkets, many corner stores which people rely on for daily food.
How do we get food in? How do we use that to create economic development?
Fear of violence contributes to sedentary lifestyles?parents don?t let children out to play, no places to play anyway, not about physical space but rather social & psychological space and sense of fear;
HOPE selected 6 micro-zones for study, studied home food consumption, tracked purchases of meat, dairy, etc., did price comparisons for all accessible food outlets:
o??? 20 main food items households spend over $1000/year, $400m market in Oakland flatlands, surveyed households cooked 4-5 meals/wk,
o??? preconceptions about how much low income households spend on food at home & how much they cook;
Trying to create ?local Walmart?: vertically integrated system including production & processing & packing & distribution which employs people (especially youth) from community,
Approximately 1 acre/person needed to feed people on average, therefore about 300,000 acres needed, incremental change not adequate, need change at systemic level

W.R.: Venezuela also instituted supermarket chain that carries exclusively staples, can grow own veggies but need source of staples, ?farmers need to grow beans rather than chard?

H.H.: need equitable distribution, need to make sustainable food system that not only serve elites

Kaytea Petro: Stealmyfruit.com?aim is low price point for fruit, making fresh fruit accessible, working with Peoples Grocery on project. People?s Grocery aiming to serve 1/3 of Oakland with grocery store on W. Grand.

H.H.: Oakland Food Policy Council, Food First is incubator, Alethea Harper new coordinator for council

W.R: grassroots groups do operate under full systems approaches, just need to be scaled up, need city gov help in order to do that. Not that market based solutions should not be pursued, but many market based approaches DO involve subsidies, homegardens etc. get around that

K.P.: BA groups now making a big difference ? people DO eat better, are more educated about food systems

H.H.: where are resources going to come from? Revenues from sales should fund system ? market is large enough, can structure system differently in order to do that, conventional retail grocery stores pay approx $.75/dollar for food, actual profit margin 2%, we can arrange purchasing & relationships with producers to cut out middlemen and capture more of food dollar for both retailer & producer, but where does up-front investment come from?

Mike Church: is there a future with no need for separate emergency food, in addition for these proposed solutions for more low income access?

J.C.: getting rid of food deserts is important; spoilage is also important consideration when dealing with fresh foods

Cara Peck: food is undervalued; need shift in culture that privileges fresh foods

H.H.: regenerative farming methods are cheapest we have, we can produce food inexpensively on small scale, best way to stop Cargill is to not buy their food

W.R.: movement has been going for 30 years, real results even if incremental

Jered Lawson: on coast higher value of land creates a lot of pressure to use land more profitable (which is often not regenerative)

P.R.: we have enough food, let?s distribute it before it goes bad

W.R.: movie: ?The Gleaners?

Bethallyn Black: almond picking crews only go through twice, can?t bring in gleaners because of need for insurance, gleaning groups need own insurance, don?t need to grow almonds in urban environment we just need to find a way to distribute it

Sarah Nelson: recession teaches corrective behavior

Rebecca North: farms provide all needs (of HOPE?s mission)

W.R.: Oakland Food System Assessment included call for vacant land mapping, structure is what?s lacking in order for people to plug in

K.P.: Philadelphia Orchards doing good work on edible parks

Cynthia King: CFJC working on urban land procurement, Seattle has policy that mandates a garden for every 2,500 people

4. Farm to School Table: Making it Happen in Public, Charter, and Private Schools
Moderator: Ildi Carlisle-Cummings, Director, Farm To School Program, CAFF

CAFF Farm to School Program services? (http://www.caff.org/programs/farm2school.shtml)
refer to family farms for produce
provide educational tools
harvest food item of the month
nutrition education lessons for teachers
hub for referrals of other school?s lesson plans
National Farm to School Case Studies pamphlet, and many more pamphlets available
help to consolidate purchasing orders and distribution mechanisms

Torrey Olsen is a farmer at Gabriel Farm near Sebastopol. (http://www.gabrielfarm.com/)
From a farm perspective, how to make farm to school a reality
Farm grows Asian pears, organic specialties, Northwest of Sebastopol
Started out by attempting to organize a local P.O. for schools.
Schools happy to purchase his smaller pears
CAFF?s Growers Collaborative now buys almost all fruit, they buy it at half price of normal wholesale.
Happy to continue selling to Growers Collaborative, but he?s not making hardly any profit, so he?d like to expand more to Whole Foods and Veritable Vegetable.
The best place to interact with a farmer is at a farmer?s market ? he does a lot of wholesale at farmer?s markets.
School purchasers could make it to the markets to purchase wholesale direct and meet the farmers halfway.

Ann Cooper is Director of Nutrition Services for Berkeley Unified School District. (www.Lunchlessons.org)
1.4 million meals/year, 9000 students total ? breakfast and lunch ? 8000 meals/day
3 years ago: pre-packaged foods (chicken nuggets, burritos, pizza, etc.)
Sources bread, salad, veggies locally (from Washington State to Southern Cal.)
Calendar contains menus, schedules of cooking classes
walks to Berkeley Market Tuesday & Saturday, contacts her procurement person with items/farms she wants
Buys direct from a couple farmers who deliver direct to kitchen (she doesn?t pick it up)
Tries to get produce staff & farmers together, but its preferable to have farmers deliver
Buys from Green Leaf and Veritable Vegetable, but also direct from a few farmers.

WE MUST GET TO THE CENTER OF THE PLATE:
this doesn?t mean that there?s a couple vegetables on your plate, but the whole plate
getting rid of processed foods, until every food is a whole, local item.
Success comes from not following the status quo of public schools.
Community wellness policy is key to overall approach
support of school district
treat it like a restaurant, not a school service
Menu doesn?t have chocolate milk, chicken nuggets.
Systematically replaced canned products with fresh foods (Used canned apricots for barbeque sauce)
Transition from canned/frozen to pre-cut fresh vegetables.

FINANCES:
Federal reimbursement rates contribute to meal costs.
Meals for Needy adds $1.29/meal for breakfast & lunch for free/reduced price lunch.
computerized system for tracking prices, costs and reimbursements

Parent-focused Marketing: cooking classes, PTA meeting attendance, Hispanic parent outreach, promotional materials (calendar, cd)
Ask parents to:
have your kids eat school lunch
turn off the tv and have your kids cook with you
have your kids food shopping with you

Central kitchen model: cooking, chilling, serving cold, heating on site.

UC Berkeley Center of Weight and Health EVALUATION Study:
their kids eat 3 times as many vegetables as other kids
gardens in every school, but cooking programs in only 11 schools
plate waste is studied, but she?s not aware of amounts

Family Farming Foundation (F3) ? Private foundation will put all info on web portal. (How to clone your very own Ann Cooper! Website coming soon!)

TRANSITIONING STAFF TO HEALTHY FOOD:
20 % staff turn-over after taking position with Berkeley USD
training and professional development with staff IS KEY
one of things we need is a community college program to teach cooks culinary skills
nationally funded program to train cooks, like Ameri-Corps for cooks, Culinary Boot Camp
schools should buy all excess from summer produce and process it in house
Staff Recognition and worker?s self-identity: chef white uniforms

Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act 2010
$ for facilities, training, marketing, nutrition education, improve standards of food items that are offered, increase purchase price to the actual amount that is reimbursed by gov?t.
Eating environment: partly real plates/ partly compostable dishes; free water dispensing; bulk organic milk; 30 minutes (would like longer); no competitive food sales;
Most important thing for change: Wellness Policy.
breakfast everyday in the classroom k-8, in cafeteria 9-12
waste complaints by staff are secondary to making sure that no child is hungry at any point during the school day; kids take priority over clean-up.

Nancy May has worked to get local foods into school lunches for almost 20 years.
Healdsburg Unified School District:
Contacted local farmers to replace packaged food in schools.
Had $1.30 per meal to work with.
Developed very simple menus, trained staff, community trust-building.
Wrote grants for nutrition education funding.
Valley of the Moon Children?s Home ? same motivation: get healthy local food to kids.
-??? based on a national school lunch model
-??? reimbursement dollars were worth all the dollars supplemented by USDA
Lagunitas Unified School District
uses Leah Smith and the farmers market as the produce broker for school lunch

Children?s Choice Distribution: Serves 60% private schools, 40% public (mostly in very small districts that don?t have central food service).
100% voluntary participation (not funded by USDA)
must have parent base buy-in, without alienating them.
Parents volunteer as service staff at school site.
Challenge is in addressing non-local market forces: promoting seasonal availability of local foods.

Resources for funding information:
???? Starbucks
???? Chipotle Grill
???? Whole Foods
???? Farm to School. Org has a grant page
???? www.Lunchlessons.org

5. Contracting & Measuring Sustainability at an Institutional Scale.??
Moderator: Tim Galarneau, Food Systems Education & Research Program Specialist, Center For Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, University of California Santa Cruz

David Visher is the California Program Manager for the Food Alliance
Food Alliance is a nonprofit headquartered in Oregon, 3rd party ?sustainable? certification for producers, handlers and processors
What is ?sustainable??
Hard to translate general concepts/values into metrics on the ground
How to also translate to handlers and processors?
How to define ?local??
Difficult because varies by region
How to bring local and sustainable together? Important, because many people think local means sustainable, but you need both. Challenge: take demands of customers and translate them into food that reflects them. Food Alliance Certification Standards
Environmental: IPM, no GMO, not using worst pesticides, non-point source runoff
Social Justice: no salary requirements, but need to have a plan for incorporating workers, good HR programs for grievances
Point system for most standards
o??? Varies from 1-4 (1- follows law, 4- leader in field)
Sustainability is a journey along a path, so farms have to have a plan to improve and have to constantly improve to be certified
Look at the whole food chain (producers, handlers, processors and buyers) and try to move them forward at the same time
Difficult to get consumers to recognize a new label, so work on business to business connections and trust

Ida Shen is the Assistant Director and Executive Chef at Cal Dining UC Berkeley. (http://caldining.berkeley.edu/)
Request For Proposals required more info
RFP worth $1.25 mil of produce for one year: 7 produce companies put in bids
Local was defined as 15 county radius
source verification for produce
able to work with vendor because some produce must come from far away
must be organic certified because of organic salad bar, encouraged a lot of produce buyers
preferred vendor who was locally based and vendor who looks at sustainability of operations
Picked Daylight Produce and SF Specialty
Working with CAFF/alternative vendors
chefs wanted one-stop shop/vendor for produce so resisted initially because they had to make extra calls/orders
training chefs that UC Berkeley has larger ideals so they can spend a little more on food with a story
buy apples from a farmer whose student goes to Berkeley
o??? brought in new varieties of apples as they came into season
telling the story of the food key! They label the farms that food comes from
peer-to-peer communication: when they first started working with CAFF, only one chef at one unit was willing to buy from them and then she told the other chefs how great the produce and service was
creating the relationship key! CAFF was willing to come to meetings,

Tim Galarneau
UCSC process for creating food guidelines. Challenges for social responsibility in contract guidelines
Difficult because not a lot of third-party certifications
?Preference Points? used for values that are not currently third-party certified
Now ALBA/Monterey Bay Consortium is piloting an Ag-Justice Project
Real Food Challenge
Nationwide student-led movement for sustainable and just food in campus and university dining services
20% Real food by 2020
Linking/Uniting students and food service directors
Calculator: Balance between metrics/certification and values/ideals

Q: Food Safety Requirements/Liability Insurance?
Ida: yes, important. Food safety the most important issue for food served to students; chefs only buy from big-name farms on CAFF list

David: big industry rallied fast after spinach e-coli outbreak, now CAFF is looking at science based standards as an alternative. GC farmers sign off on liability standards, but not necessarily certified by outside organization

Erin: UC Office of Procurement said that liability could be lowered for direct purchasing relationships because more assurance

Sharon: University has accepted GC insurance requirements

Maisie Greenawalt : BAMCO would love to be involved in RFC! Concerned about students asking for information faster than it is available with software. BAMCO Eat Local challenge was in 75 universities nationwide, and they wanted to tap into Month of Action, but couldn?t get in touch with RFC
Tim: we are trying to get students to work with dining services, not just raising their fists

Thy Tran: how to deal with students who come in and out- what is structure for longevity?
Tim: Survey work on how students become engaged: point of contact, newsprint, tv/radio, not powerpoints!
David: different universes, don?t get stuck in your one world
Bu: lifelong learning commitment, if anyone wants to visit a produce warehouse is invited to come!

Afternoon Panel: Implementing and Measuring Local Sourcing
Moderator: Diane Del Signore, Executive Director, Community Alliance with Family Farmers
?
Tim Galarneau is a Food Systems Education and Research Specialist at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz
CASFS- 25 acre organic farm and research center
History of Purchasing at UCSC:
4-5 years ago UCSC did not purchasing any organic/local produce
Sodexho was food service provider; main challenges:
Liability insurance high
They have vendor lists that they need to comply with so they can get kickbacks
Contract was up for renegotiation, UCSC decided to become self-operated
After became self-operated, came up with set of values that a group of stakeholders could agree on. And set purchasing guidelines:
Compromised on definition of local: 250 miles
Social factors
Organic/sustainably produced
Worked with CAFF and local organic farmers to create Monterey Bay Organic Farming Consortium
Goals: 2% first year, incrementally increased, now at 25% locally sourced
Scaling up these successes to UC-wide policy
UC had policies on climate change, waste, transportation, so in 2005, movement for food purchasing guidelines started
Food service directors from all over the state contributing
Office of the President supporting this, should be finished 2009
?
Maisie Greenawalt is Vice President of Communications for Bon App?tit Management Company (http://www.circleofresponsibility.com/)
BAMCO is a nationwide specialty food service company that is dedicated to sustainability. In between a conventional food service company and self-operated in terms of how it operates
o??? 1999- started proactively and consciously buying locally, even though they were already doing this to a certain extent because of the flavor
???? changed messaging- how is local connected to communities, the environment, the economy in addition to flavor
o??? Company goal: 20% food purchases local
???? Local = within 150 miles, family operated or cooperative (daily management), and revenue < $5 mil
???? Looked at standards carefully
???? Family farm- Cargill is a family farm, so can?t just use this
???? $5 mil was a compromise to allow dairies, and other foods who need to be grown/raised at a larger scale
???? Challenges: software and information about the food
o??? Changes they made to encourage local purchasing: Payment of vendors
???? Non-preferred vendors get paid in 90-180 days
???? Preferred vendors get paid within 30 days, or as soon as 7 days to accommodate small farmers
o??? Liability requirements
???? General liability requirements- $5 mil
???? Farm to Fork vendors- $1 mil
???? 15 pg long document with requirements, but they worked with Food Alliance and CAFF on making sure that small farmers followed these practices
o??? Summary: BAMCO works is committed to working in support of farmers and are flexible to change their policies to make it work
?
Ann Cooper is Director of Nutrition Services for Berkeley Unified School District. (www.Lunchlessons.org)
Anecdote: ?Produce Wall?- on Fridays, all produce comes in, staff receives it, washes, cuts, preps, and then ships it to school sites and stores it in the walk-in for the rest of the week. This is the end of the story, how did we get here?

How it used to be
No cooks, microwave food- classic school food
Food ordered a year ahead of time
All frozen food- no walk-in refrigerators
Changes
Replaced canned green beans with pre-cut broccoli (because no one to cut it) and then with fresh, whole broccoli (once staff were trained)
Ann goes to Berkeley farmers markets, tastes produce and talks to the farmers, then calls her distributor
Two purveyors: Greenleaf and Veritable Vegetables: Requires that distributors tell her where the food comes from and that they can get it at a reasonable price
How do you get kids to eat the food?
Marketing plan: menu calendars, gardens, cooking classes
Where they?re at now
No processed foods, no high fructose corn syrup
No produce from other countries, all within a few states corridor, first preference: within 100 miles first
Salad bars in all schools, fruit for kids to take all the time
Local, organic milk

Questions: What would you recommend for people who are in institutions that are not so receptive?
Could you talk about some obstacles you encountered along the way?

Tim: Example of a challenge: UCSD Dining Director gave policy recommendations to Sodexho rep and they came back with a report saying their costs would go up 600% if they bought all (!) local, organic, sustainable
Black and white thinking- they were looking at the extremes
How do we get people to think about steps along the way?
Offer resources of best practices, peer-to-peer discussions
Real Food Challenge is providing a network and examples to campuses all over the country
Link campuses in the same region, not always using UCSC as an example

Q: How do corporate guests and college students compare in their reactions? Biggest challenges?

Maisie: Started program in 1999, but didn?t market it until 2004 when they realized other people cared. Students, universities loved it. Corporate foodservices didn?t care at first, but the trend quickly moved to corporate sites
o??? Message of local, sustainable works nationally
???? In bay area, may be for environmental reasons
???? In Midwest, may be for supporting rural communities
Biggest Challenge: Distribution!
o??? Operating nationwide, but need local/regional solutions
o??? Chefs/managers need to find local growers if Growers Collaborative distributor not available

Q:What is the next obstacle? Changes in eating habits of kids?

Ann: Next obstacle: dollars and finances!
National School Lunch Bill- raise reimbursement rate, $$ for training, facilities, gardens, etc
Ann is going to take on the National authorization
Eating habits
o??? Revolts, sit-ins, complaints
o??? She got rid of the disgusting nacho cheese, and the kids all said they weren?t going to eat anything anymore
???? She worked with the kids to create a new healthier version of nachos
???? It?s important to engage the kids and ask for their opinions

Questions from the Audience

Miguel Villareal, Novato Unified School District
Comment: We need your support on Bill AJR 69- increase funding, change eligibility scale
How can we get more people like you to be in every school district?
Ann: Food, Family Farming Foundation- building web portal with all resources for how to change your school district?s food

Cost differences between start and now?
Ann: All about participation: used to be 500,000 now $1.4 mil
Cut % of payroll costs from 64 to 53, so now has more money for food

What staff-training did you do?
Ann: Only working equipment when she arrived were box cutters and can crushers.
Extensive training- she and a hired chef worked with everyone on all the food. A lot of time and attention and
Food boot camp: bring food service directors and cooks on a week long training program

How can people outside corporate world understand their food services?
Maisie: Ask if your food service is self-operated or run by a management company- what are their values?
Find green-team or CSR folks and bring them together with food service provider.
Tim: Aramark and Sodexho coming on board with these demands because they recognize that this is a long-term trend, not a fad. Sodexho piloting local-food sourcing on 10 campuses this year. Think outside the box on reducing costs- food waste! Removing trays has reduced food waste by 25-35% and water by 300,000 gallons.

Why is there less waste when trays go away?
Tim: Because people fill up whatever space they have. Reduce waste in all-you-care-to-eat operations.
Ann: they are moving back to trays because they are using reusable?s, not disposables
Important to know customers.

What kind of marketing do you do about your sustainability programs?
Maisie: Provide resources to local accounts, but also provide flexibility. Eat Local Challenge- 1 day nationwide, everything is local. College students don?t want to read more. Circle of Responsibility Information Boards- switched to ?Know what you?re eating?

How to have centralized decision-making with decentralized autonomy?
Tim: Good feedback process, framework for support but allow RFC: create calculator that has guidelines but allows for flexibility

How do you measure percentages? Weight, dollars??
Ann: Weight for produce, but also total $$ for all purchases
Maisie: track by $$, difficult to get consistent weights
Tim: depends on situation, if students are growing the produce, then weight makes more sense, food waste is in weight/volume
?

Afternoon Roundtables

?6. Chef to Chef on the Nuts and Berries
Jenny Hudson, Moderator, Director of Culinary Social Enterprise, Bay Area Community Services

Jenny Hudson: Challenges of entering the kitchen and seeing frozen and canned foods
In some cases, frozen peas from California are better than frozen peas from China
Issues of staff training, an ongoing process

Alfredo at Bon Appetit hasn?t faced such difficult challenges regarding staff training because of Bon Appetit?s emphasis on fresh and seasonal foods

Preeti at Bon Appetit pushes even harder to procure organic and sustainable foods to go further than Bon Appetit?s 20% minimum rule
Getting staff to comply with the seasonal goods is a challenge, and Preeti engages staff in cooking new produce
When the kitchen culture changes, it?s important to make it a group effort and engage staff through meetings
Produce identification: what is it? Where does it come from? What does it taste like?
Education on healthy choices and techniques, forging a relationship with the staff, taking time to work one on one with the staff

Challenges of Farm to Fork Policies on the Restaurant:
Challenge of getting staff to handle different accounts that necessarily comes with buying direct from local farms; split accounts
Union difficulties in some kitchens: changing the work environment is sometimes fraught with conflict from unions
Challenges of never being able to source everything locally: compostable paper products only available in Southeast Asia
Challenge of creating minimums with producers so they will do business with East Bay businesses and kitchens
Expenses sometimes amount to 40% more for organic than conventional?if you can cut out the middle man, this will decrease costs
Structural Challenges: will people know the difference between organic and conventional tomatoes?
Working with government mandates works for industrialization and not nutrition
Working with customers who expect to have watermelon the whole year

Challenges for the Farmers:
Saturation of markets for some farms, and while they might be looking to expand they need enough customers to make the expansion profitable
o??? EX: moving from Sacramento markets down to the Bay Area
Farms looking to produce what customers want with guaranteed market and volume
Demanding chefs overwhelming the small farmer with big orders or issues of availability?if farms can?t produce, will restaurants go somewhere else?
Challenges: Farmers want a guarantee, sometimes farmers don?t want to put all their eggs in one basket
Supply: local farms might not be able to meet short-term demands; restaurant runs out of food on a busy day, then big distributor is the one who can meet the demands to fill the walk in for the next day

What can we do?
Rebuilding infrastructure for mid level producers who don?t want to drive in and do direct business: small scale distribution is important for these producers
??? Challenge: where is the money going?
Transportation?how can we move food into the city in an efficient and affordable manner? How can we create cold storage facilities for farms to store their goods for a few days for city accounts?

7. Local Sourcing in Health Care and Hospitals
Lena Brook is a Senior Program Associate at Physicians for Social Responsibility, San Francisco Bay Chapter and also works with Health Care Without Harm. (http://www.psr.org/)
Healthy Food in Health Care
? a dozen hospitals implementing plan with healthy food procurement
- collective strategies

Karen Arnold is Chief of Nutrition and Food Service, San Francisco VA Medical Center (http://www.sanfrancisco.va.gov)
- all breads switched to whole grain (33% from Vital Vittles Bakery, Berkeley)
- larger vegetable portions from 4 to 6 oz.
- dark green vegetables and leafy greens; eliminated iceberg lettuce
- switched to favoring brown rice over white rice
- local milk sourcing
- switched to local yogurt by asking distributor

Hospital Challenges:
Open 365 days/year, 3 meals day; special meals require particular parameters, such as soft textures, etc.; food service competes with expensive medical equipment;
cycling menus: pre-set menus make it difficult to source seasonal ingredients
national prime vendor agreements with 135 other VA hospitals makes individualizing her institution challenging.
VA hospitals vary regionally and state-by-state
76% veterans have Diabetes
36% Hypertension
GEMS program? Green Environmental Management Systems,
purchasing locally
decreasing waste

VHA Healthy Food and Diet model
goal to finalize by 2009 and phase in over 2 year period
guidelines for nutrition requirements, weight management and food procurement
VA doesn?t have purchasing power that Premier and other hospital conglomerates have, but they do have a preferred vendor system (US Food service) - $196 million per year contract
Many hospitals have flexibility with their produce contracts, but not with other food items.
This could mean that switching to local, seasonal sourcing for hospitals is more likely to happen than with other food products.

Growers Collaborative (an n.p.o) packages their story of sustainability and benefits to local economy with their food deliveries, but when they freight their product for larger institutions, their story is lost and the prices they ask do not compete with large-scale distributors. They do have passion and youth, but not capital investment to compete with large scale distributors.

Food Safety
Green Leaf Distributors contracts with farmers who have displayed a certain level of food safety measures.
CAFF is working (in conjunction with the UC Agriculture studies) to develop a stronger science-based metric model to establish food safety standards for farmers.

Invoice Software
Freshpoint Distribution, a subsidiary of Sysco, provides RFP language in their billing that includes sourcing info by each food item.

Linda Hansen is Director of Nutrition Services, St. Joseph?s Health System (http://www.stjhs.org)
Achievements for 16 ?ministries? in California
changed all vegetables to fresh, eliminated most canned
increased cafeteria sales by $100,000 between 2006-2007
increased sales allowed increasing labor hours and staffing
Clover Dairy existed already, switched over to Clover yogurt, which did cost more
changed coffee ? saved $20,000
eliminated bottled water for catering, saved $12,000 (still offer it, but its for sale instead of free)
Marin Sun Farms grass fed meat
Rocky and Rosy chicken occasionally, but not when piece size must be regular
Amy?s Organic supplies vending products for night staff
cafeteria is open between 1:30am ? 4:30am
local Cousteau Bakery
MedAssets ? group purchasing organizations
Healthy Food in Health Care pledge was signed in 2000 ? an intention to do better.
Passed out ?Health and Nutrition Activities 2006-Present? info sheet.
Received Philosophy Grant for $25,000 initial funding for kick-off of local produce, and setting up a weekly farmer?s market.
This Year
acquired $65,000 grant
focusing on patient education, food labeling and marketing
expecting more red tape with purveyors, administrative oversight and approval from dieticians
Challenges
training chefs that know how to cook
hired 2 chefs from local restaurants
offering benefits, good hours and good pay is key to hiring a qualified chef

Baby steps are CRUCIAL ? be proactive, but know that you?ll have to organize all steps along the way. Plan for a several year transition and report your incremental changes to assure administration.

Alison Negrin: Chef, John Muir Health Systems, Walnut Creek (http://www.johnmuirhealth.com/index.php/jmmdhs_jmmc.html)
Uses Bay Cities Produce distributor; they report farm source on invoices, from large farms.
Kitchen must have a TILT SKILLET
Money Savings:
Prefers pre-cuts (despite increased price) because it saves labor costs in the kitchen.
Doesn?t have prep-cooks, dishwashers and other kitchen support staff; hires high-skill chefs instead and pays well.

Menu Transition
identifies different patient communities that require special menus
prepared several recipes for each community.
tried to make it easier for cooks to prepare special menus
took one year to switch over menus completely
soft menu
one recipe: carrot ginger water = soup

GARDENS AND HORTICULTURAL THERAPY
healing gardens
high school students

8. Stakeholder Alliance and Policy Innovations in Marin and the Peninsula
Moderator: Ildi Carlisle-Cummings, Director, Farm To School Program, CAFF. Recently has been working with Healthy Silicon Valley and Full Circle Farm

Leah Smith is Outreach director at Marin Agricultural Institute (http://www.marinagriculturalinstitute.org/)
Leah has been working on a Farm to Fork distribution model, using farmers? market as a distribution hub for large buyers. She?s been in Marin for 10 years working with Marin Ag Land Trust, trying to stop development and financial pressures from taking over farm land, went on to do Farm to School work

The Marin county-wide plan came up for review in 2007. The plan was actually passed this month
One of missing links we found was actually getting the food from the farms to the institutions and businesses that wanted it
Marin Farmers? Market didn?t get into because we wanted to be a distributor, rather we wanted to be instigators, we?re advocates and educators who don't necessarily want to be distributors over the long run
Marin Farmers? Markets is a 501c5 ? run Marin FM as well as markets in Oakland, Hayward, Newark. Public education is a big part of their mission, so started Marin Agricultural Institute which is a 501c3, to receive public funding.
Farmers? markets are typically in parking lots- good because it is low impact, but sometimes doesn?t recognize the value and opportunity of all these farmers coming together. Or doesn?t capture the 10,000 people who come to sat farmers? market to educate them a permanent way, so we are working on a permanent structure for the market

In Marin one challenge is that there is a gap between the visionary county-wide plan and a the contract language which dictate what concessions to do.
But this new document is very exciting, every element of the county-wide plan has? a sustainability lens, focusing on Economy, Equity and Environment
50% of Marin county land is in agriculture, 10% on public land
County plans always discuss the management of land but not the actual food, this lack was apparent when reviewed by Marin Food Policy Council
Natural systems and Agriculture part had been added to plan, now there is a Food and Agriculture part added
Process of having a council with multiple stakeholders meeting and coming up with intelligent language is a great way to go.? When drafts came out, we looked back to original hopes and desires and reinserted language that had been dropped. A lot of diligence is required to continue to engage with county
Implementing is a 7 year process, but implementation began early because of public excitement
The plan promotes org certification and a local organic certifying agency; we have gone from 100s of acres to 25,000 acres of certified organic ag
Marketing of local products, including permanent market and marketing to restaurants
The big challenge is working within county concessions, like jails, parks and open space.
Sometimes seems too general, no percentage benchmarks or definition of what local means
There?s some policy burnout, but not it serves as a visionary documents that we need to work to insert for specifics into.

Linden Skjeie, works with the City of San Jose Office of Sustainability
San Jose has been using action 17 of the Urban Environmental Accords (which states that cites should ?Promote the public health and environmental benefits of supporting locally grown organic foods.? Ensure that twenty per cent of all city facilities (including schools) serve locally grown and organic food within seven years.?)
City of SJ signed on to UEA in 2005, and incorporated Action 17 into our Environmentally Preferable Procurement (EPP) already in place.
Also have green building policy. New buildings must be either LEED-certified Silver or Gold, and get a check off in the LEED criteria for serving a certain % of local, organic food
Our Convention Center works with ALBA to source locally, our Senior Meals Program has an open purchase order with Veritable Vegetables
Library put out an RFP for 9 libraries recently, we inserted local and organic sourcing into those as well
Challenges ? not enough vendors; how to change language in multi-year contracts
Some vendors can?t offer the volume or deliveries on a given day
Sometimes it costs more, so folks source what has a comparable price.

Work with Healthy Silicon Valley
There is an effort to try to address obesity and health through environmental change
For kids who have no access to healthy food in their neighborhoods, who have bad lunch in school, who have to be driven to school because its far away
In the past treatment of diabetes, etc. happens post-diagnosis, the vision is that we can address these problems before they start
We can foster a culture of health by supporting health, activity and healthy nutrition in all sectors

Luisa Garrett, Healthy Silicon Valley, Food Providers Sector (http://www.healthysiliconvalley.org/)
In our mission statement we are working to preserve land, to cultivate and access locally grown food
This group is not going to dig in the dirt, but want to preserve the dirt that?s left to dig in, encourage a broad range of community stakeholders to preserve land and then decide what to do with it
Incorporate a return to original identity of Silicon Valley, the Valley of Heart?s Delight, used to be orchards where there are now subdivisions
In order to meet those goals of 20% local and organic we?ve been having to put the boundary of ?local? further and further out
We are working with community activists, NGO representatives from places like Full Circle Farms, and Veggielution, which began on SJ State campus ? students borrowing space from private landowners to grow food
We haven?t yet successfully pulled in the restaurant and retail side, that?s an important voice to have represented
We?ve written policy position papers in support of land preservation, urban and urban edge agriculture, community gardens
We were working under some deadlines with the county Greenprint, a 20 yr strategic vision for parks and recreation, and were able to submit some position papers
It didn't say anything about community gardens, right now there?s a few and there?s a huge waiting list
There are currently 44 parcels of arable land that San Jose is thinking about how to utilize.? Some piece are small and might just get given to adjacent owners, we?re trying to influence that towards being used for community gardens and urban ag
We really want to create a culture of change and excitement in SJ about eating local, it hasn?t caught hold the way it has in the SF area, we?re working to spark enthusiasm

Jennifer Gross is a Community Health Planner for San Mateo County Healthy Department (http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/)
Coordinates Get Healthy San Mateo County task force, coming from obesity prevention perspective, increasing access to healthy food and physical activity
involved in Food Systems Alliance, facilitated by Ag Innovations Network, a unique coalition of farmers, fisherman, public health professionals, etc. working for an economically viable, environmentally sound, socially just food system
It?s taken time to figure out how to do that, after meeting for a year it feels like we?re finally getting there
Did some work on Farm Bill, wrote to mayor?s office asking them to support a farm bill that supports health
It was important for us to have some ?safer? projects, like around marketing campaigns
We?re developing a constitution, creating talking points about why sustainable ag is important, getting it on a website, this helps everyone present unified messages

Three focus areas:
1) Garden Based Education ? trying to ensure that there are gardens at every school ? this is a goal that Alameda is working on too - they are a leader in the field.? Trying to promote nutrition and ag education in schools
2) Farm to Institutions ? how can we bring local food to hospitals and schools?? Our healthy community collaborative includes local hospitals, food service directors and chefs from hospitals that are taking this on and trying to learn more from folks who have done it in the Bay Area.? One charter school in SM county is working with Revolution Foods ? they help school districts procure local food.? We may work with them more or with bigger providers like Sodexo and Chartwells
3) Land use ? increasing local food production and changing land use patterns, especially trying to address problems related to water shortages

Challenges:
Competing priorities
Many schools are struggling just trying to stay afloat, to raise their test scores
Increase under-represented voices ? folks who struggle with access, a lot of them are not represented, how can we get their ideas on the table, get them to participate
Selecting projects that relate to everybody and there?s a piece for them to latch onto in
Complexity of the food system
General participation in Food Alliance ? everyone has other jobs and different things going on in their lives

Q: Who is housing the effort?
For SM County there isn?t really a home, Health Dept is interested in Farm to Institution. But no one staffs the Food Alliance
Currently Healthy Silicon Valley has provided a skeleton and a lot of support, but it?s still hard to balance everyone and their perspectives
part of the Health Trust ? a SV based foundation with goal of making SV the healthiest region in America

Idli: HSV took advantage of Greenprint plan for 20 years, in Marin the county plan presented itself as an opportunity
-How to move policy forward when there isn?t a big plan on the table?

Linden: It is possible to do minor amendments all the way through, to make changes in between
-Passing a resolution city wide is a good tool to get specific language in there
-Working with city council policies

Jennifer:? A challenge is where to start ? with cities? Board of supervisors? County health and wellness policy?
-Will have to identify who is most excited

Luisa: It was important for us to choose some things that are small and everyone can definitely be supportive of ? writing a letter for a school garden e.g.

Q: How does the Farm to Fork distribution in Marin work?

Leah ? it?s our local produce distribution
-Works with the FM, since farmers are already driving trucks down, staffing markets, bring produce to the city
-They pre-sell to local customers, we created an order form going out to local customers twice a week, we call farmers and they bring products to the farmers? market, they bring it into our truck and we deliver in directly
-There?s no speculative buying, everything dropped off with us is already sold, this reduces waste
-Some farmers and chefs prefer the direct relationship, we aren?t going to get in the way of that, this is for folks who wouldn't otherwise buy locally, farmers who wouldn't be able to sell
-The county plan includes support for processing.? How? Could be through some county funds, but I don?t see county playing active funding role, except for food services under their umbrella to change policy and language

Q: In San Jose, what kind of food do the libraries sell that can be sources locally?

Linden: Fruit and green salads. Used as an opportunity to do environmental mgmt section with libraries in general, including janitorial cleaning products, how they would deal with waste, etc.

Q: What specific support have people seen of urban agriculture?

Linden: ? 44 parcels just came up last week in San Jose
Veggielution has morphed over to Emma Prusch Park, it was unused park land that they petitioned to be able to plant on, trying to expand
given implosion in housing market there may be more opportunity, Coyote Valley in South San Jose., 1200 acres went through a huge planning process to a create a new city and that?s just gone by the wayside, and we?re hoping it stays that way, and we could be happy to have that farmland on the southern border
Parcel of 280 acres in South San Jose, Martial Cottle Park, elderly owner bequeathed land to county for agricultural and educational area. Use is specified, hopefully up by 2012

Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale
11 acres on campus of Peterson Middle School owned by Santa Clara USD, were considering developing into soccer fields, one board member championed the idea of turning it into a farm
there were various competing proposals, in the end the board unanimously voted for it to be an educational farm
50% of food goes to middle school cafeteria
Idea is within 3 to 5 year plan they would become a self-sustaining operation, CSA in first year

Luisa: It?s also about reaching cultural change and supporting cultural change, how to get everyone excited, boasting that they have a farm in their neighborhood. Community members are creeping out towards the farm stand

Leah: There are food safety concerns about things grown on school campuses and not being allowed to use food grown on site-for school programs had to develop safety procedures

Bethalynn, CC County Master Gardeners: LA county has great school gardens and are supported by purchasing from school district. 15 acre parcel in Hercules, community agriculture and community kitchen, maybe with public use component. Contra Costa county is way behind the loop in this stuff, they do have the ag that remains in Brentwood. There are private schools with marvelous gardens and soup is being made so parents can get a container of minestrone soup. With public schools when you get into prepared food, have to make sure that that policies and safety standards are in place. I won?t discuss putting a garden in a school unless there is a revenue stream specifically for the garden. Yvonne Savio in LA USD pioneered their program. It?s very above ground, they do IPM, not certified organic but low toxicity, with Healthy Schools Act. Instead of utilizing Master Gardener programs, there is quick training for folks committed to working with school gardens, very ethnically appropriate, definitely reaching underserved communities, it?s an exciting model, very different from the Bay Area

Jennifer: There is one elementary school that sells produce at the FM

Luisa: What about school garden maintenance, people get gung ho and plant school gardens, but they can fall into disrepair

Bethalynn: You need commitment from the staff and PTA, and hopefully a part time garden coordinator
-Won?t send a Master Gardener unless infrastructure is already in place
-No one likes to do the maintenance, need funding for part time staff

Kira Pascoe, UC Cooperative Extension: Work on incentives for investing in a garden from more folks at the school.? Principal buy is really important, often it?s an enthusiastic teacher or nurse that gets it going, but they leave! Could even get a janitor, crossing guard, etc. put together a team to water after hours, though it?s still a problem in the summer. We?ve seen families come in on Saturday to garden with their kid. Family Farm days ? in summers they maintain the gardens and bring produce home. For food at schools, there are three schools on Oakland with farmstands ?Franklin, Garfield, and Peralta with produce from Mien farmers who farm at Sunol Ag Park
?
Bethalynn: The majority of volunteers at school garden were grandparents, and tended to be grandfathers ? contrasts with MG demographics, lots of younger women
-That there was free water at the school gardens was a big deal

Q: How did San Jose negotiate the contact with the Convention Center? Are there strict guidelines?

Linden: We were lucky with them because the contract is in place and doesn't say much, but our executive chef was amenable, he established a relationship with ALBA after we put them in touch.? We didn?t have to wait for a contract renewal

9. Alameda and other County Policy Alliances
Moderator: Navina Khanna, HOPE Collaborative

Diane Woloshin is Director of Nutrition Services at Alameda County Public Health Department (http://www.acphd.org/)
Background on HOPE Project:
Kellogg Foundation sent out RFP to existing projects in Oakland working on healthy food and farming:
Healthy Eating Active Communities Project, Robert Wood Johnson Funds, Mayors Office of Sustainability- Food Systems Assessment, CAFF, Health Dept, People?s Grocery
Writer funded by Health Dept to write a grant with all these organizations
initial funding for 2 years, about $500k, got an extension
spent a year developing the structure of the Collaborative
expected to get 8 more years of funding after initial period: implementation and sustainability funding
one of 9 communities nationwide to receive food and fitness funding
Kellogg interested in community of learning and practice so reps from each site get together along with experts

Current status: 3 funded positions Navina, Hank, and Alisa. They staff action teams, do organizing and engagement
Four action teams
Built Environment Action Team
Local Sustainable Economic Development
Food Systems
Families and Youth
Steering Committee
2 seats from each Action Team
2 Youth seats
2 conveners
Local Business Leadership
City Government
Oakland Food Policy Council Coordinator
Oakland Unified School District

Why Health Dept included?
They are taking a broad approach to health, and recognize social determinates to health, including access to different kinds of food, amount of physical activity, etc Did some experiments with corner store conversions and CA Food Policy Advocates
Looked at what was available at corner stores
How many locally owned? Some, but not all- one of the goals is to have more locally owned and operated businesses
Health Dept very committed, at least one staff person on each action team

Is Oakland Unified included?
School district under state receivership, so don?t have total local control = difficult to do anything
OUSD just hired a Wellness Coordinator though, so there?s some hope it will improve

Alison Pratt is the Director of Policy and Services the Alameda Community Food Bank (http://www.accfb.org/)
Realized that in order to attract new and diverse people to a committee, they needed to have committees focused on issues, not policy/budget/implementation
Grad student did study of local policies that could relate to food
Developed a Policy Filter that they will now use to prioritize:
Accountability to local residents
Equity, does it reduce inequality?
Impact/Scale
Opportunity/synergy with others and other policies
Wanted to make sure all residents could be involved in policy process, not just experts
Now looking at priorities for both policy and projects/programs for the Action Plan

Chairs Food Systems Team
How much profit could be made in corner stores, Walmart, etc?
Look at a basket of food- how much are people spending on food?
What can they get locally vs having to go further away?
Surveys: people going outside of neighborhood to go to larger stores, using public transportation to get there

Why is Food Bank interested?
Increase by 60% for food requests
Fewer corporate food donations
Recognize that need in community is greater, so they need to be involved in larger programs for food security and green jobs to decrease need in the long-term
Food Bank very committed, but just adds to Alison?s work load because nothing else has been taken off her workload

David Ralston is the Chair of the Built Environment Action Team
Went to 5 identified neighborhoods
???? Listening sessions to hear from residents, bring maps/tools
???? Walk-abouts: land-use mappings to look at each parcel of land, traffic, road conditions, etc

City got involved through Mayor?s Office of Sustainability
Created a Food Policy Council with matching funds through Food First, Health Dept, HOPE Collaborative
New Food Policy Council Director housed in Food First.
Trying to bring together HOPE Collaborative and Oakland Food Policy Council
City not really focused on food, more on development, but food and fitness is coming on to the agenda more. Works for redevelopment district, not technically supposed to be working on this, but cares about it. Hard to get city staff involved because large time commitment

Q: Potential for collaboration between local cities in bay area?
Some on built environment and health
Food on margins of conversation
California Food and Justice Coalition trying to get people to think regionally and organize through their foodshed

Q: Importance of city policies vs successful programs/initiatives?
City incentives need to support these initiatives along with successful projects
Collaborative hopes to support local projects, businesses to create systemic change

Q: Community participation in Collaborative?
Varied, but increasing interest
?
10. Local Food and Climate Change Policy
Ingrid Severson, Moderator: window of opportunity for collaboration between food & climate change policy & across levels of government

Tim Frank is a Farm Bill Consultant for the American Farmland Trust (http://www.farmland.org/)
AFT: American Farmland Trust: promotes conservation of farmland & sustainable processes in farming, focus a lot of attention on federal level (Farm Bill), also active on state level with AB 32 & 35, promoting shift in ag away from subsidies for big commodities and toward smaller scale ag & specialty crops;
Main threat to farmland in US is urbanization, need to regulate in order to combat ? make it harder to build sprawl and easier to build smarter development, need to make density livable, urban ag part of that -- urban ag helps people live better by making connections to land and educating consumers, need to connect people to ag in order to protect ag land;
Federal & state resources can be put toward community gardens, building local markets, etc., ?agriculture and climate change is about more than what conventional ag can do to improve?;
Scoping plans for AB 32 should focus/incorporate local food & sustainable ag, we should encourage state decision makers (CARB) to more substantially address ag approaches in scoping plan, taking testimony on Thurs., adopting plan in December, write letters in now! ? scoping plan is real living document

Jessica Bell is the Co-Director of the California Food and Justice Coalition (http://www.foodsecurity.org/california/index.html)
CFJC: California Food and Justice Coalition: held meetings with stakeholders, constituency asked for focus on climate change, organic & local food systems reduce emissions by 10-30%, anti-hunger community also interested since food price rise is impacted by climate change;
Timing is key ? AB32 is definitive in CA, also important on city & county level, cities & counties required to reduce emissions by 20-30% by 2020 according to draft plan, cities & counties realizing that they need to develop climate action plan, now is the moment to insert food agenda into city & county climate action plans;
Currently NO plans incorporate significant food considerations, we can create & disseminate climate model policies and set the bar, CFJC (and others) submitted comments asking for organic, local, sustainable food to be incorporated as important strategy for combating climate change;
Challenges: hard to monitor emissions from food sector, 80% of planned reductions are cap & trade?concerns re: efficacy of cap & trade.

Tim Galarneau: current model only looks at on-farm emissions, systems model lacking

Mark Rhodes is a former Planning Manager for the City of Berkeley,
important to measuring how land use contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, complexity challenging but need to move ahead;
Only mention of food in Berkeley Climate Action Plan is recommendation from appendix that mentions giving garden produce to homeless, Measure G will force Berkeley to reduce GHG by 80% by 2050, includes policies & actions to get there, informs all city planning henceforth;
VMT (vehicle miles traveled) & density have inverse relationship, higher density in urban core saves gas & money, ?real estate industry tells people to drive until you can afford it?, need to address demand issue from supply side, as result of neighborhood preservation Berkeley only built 150 units in 25 years, development pressure went to Brentwood, etc.;
Within past eight years infill program has built 1000 TOD (transit oriented development) units, ?most environmental thing a city can do is build up?

Jackie Guzman works for the Association of Bay Area Governments as a Regional Planner (http://www.abag.ca.gov/)
2 million more people expected in Bay Area by 2035, infill development can reduce water demand, GHG emissions, etc.,
ABAG working with MTA to improve transportation and land use connection: FOCUS initiative, working with cities to create ?complete communities?, also working with open space advocates, creating priorities for development, collaborating with partners on implementation;
Keeping farmland in region reduces VMT, protect farmland by encouraging development in urban core, make cities livable in order to encourage people to move back to urban core, one piece in making climate targets is SB375

Rebecca North: green building mandate incorporated in infill strategy?

M.R.: everything is going LEED (at least), projects Berkeley is working on are AT LEAST LEED silver

Kari Hammerschlag: what are priorities of ag field generally vis a vis climate change? We need to convince big ag of opportunity here, one challenge is that cities want to put in emissions reductions strategies that can be quantified, we need a way to quantify effects of sustainable food production

T.M.: Food marketers, producers, & environmentalists are starting dialogue about marketing & metrics, are developing metrics to measure what is actually sustainable, but not tied into climate change, AG Kawamura (CDFA) is developing comprehensive plan for ag, metrics & plan together could start to give people credit for best practices in local food sourcing, need to bring pressure to bear through letter writing, etc.
M.R.: even in Berkeley long way to go with public education, esp with regard to how it relates to and use
T.G.: need to bring issues to public as opportunity & broaden discussion past planning circles, etc.
T.F.: need to tap into climate change activist networks, Cool Cities, etc., if we can imbed food policy in climate action plans that will give good jumping off point
J.B.: very few climate change groups are working on food issue although some want to
T.F.: easy to plug in online to Cool Cities & Sierra Club, etc.
M.R.: easy to access via www.berkeley.gov
T.F.: ICLEI important route, Schwarzenegger has also instituted climate adaptation strategy
J.B.: Berkeley wants to push the envelope on food, even where it can?t be monitored, need to move ahead now regardless of measurement capabilities
K.H.: many cities/counties get it and would be amenable
I.S.: Sonoma plan recently released & does include substantive discussion of food & land use
Yvonne Charles: not so easy to engage with climate change, severe access issues, many communities not represented
Aliza Wasserman: Environmental Justice & Climate Change Initiative doing a lot of that work connecting diverse communities
Nicole Valentino: ?slow food? really goes back much further, part of larger continuum that also includes diverse communities & their heritage, ?certain accepted arrogance around what Berkeley has done?, need to broaden thinking beyond narrow policy discussion we?re having today -- 5% Coalition, Urban Tilth
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman: more dialogue is needed with public health community
J.G.: ABAG also working on climate adaptation, collaborative effort w/ other agencies ? joint policy committee ? abag.ca.gov
T.G.: how to position food system as root cause rather than just outcome that is impacted by climate change and drought?
M.R.: need to get quantifiable figures into hands of decision makers quickly
I.S.: potential for living roofs in strategy?
M.R.: Berkeley has pioneered green roof development