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‘Local Foods & Economic Development Tour’
July 8-9 in Western MN & Eastern SD
CONTACT: Terry VanDerPol, LSP, 320-269-2105
6/19/08
MONTEVIDEO, Minn. — A series of presentations on how farmers, processors, institutions and government officials can work together to make local food systems drivers of Main Street economies will be July 8-9 at various locations in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. The main presenter will be Ken Meter, one of the region’s leading experts on the role food production plays in economic development. These presentations are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Land Stewardship Project’s Terry VanDerPol at 320-269-2105 or tlvdp@landstewardshipproject.org.
The dates and times of the presentations are:
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Tuesday, July 8, 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., Kandiyohi County Health and Human Services Building, 2200 23rd St. N.E.,Willmar, Minn. A free breakfast will be served from 7 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Please reserve a spot by calling Bobbi Jo at 320-231-7852.
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Tuesday, July 8, 1 p.m., pie and coffee at the Cabin Café on Hwy 75, downtown Clinton, Minn. Please reserve a spot by contacting Kathy at 320-273-2473 or kdraeger@umn.edu.
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Tuesday, July 8, 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Clear Lake Community Center, 803 North Street W., Clear Lake, S. Dak. Also presenting at the Clear Lake meeting will be Patrick Garrity, a former South Dakota farmer who is now Executive Director of Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market in Sioux City, Iowa. Garrity is part of a movement in that part of Iowa that is using government policy, innovative marketing, local processing and public education to make local foods a key driver of the region’s economy.
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Wednesday, July 9, noon to 1:30 p.m., Senior High School, 1501 William Ave., Montevideo, Minn. A free will offering will be taken for lunch. Please call 320-269-2105 to reserve a spot so a good headcount for lunch can be obtained.
Meter is the President of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis and has spent the past three decades helping local communities build their capacity to generate and keep local homegrown wealth. His pioneering local economic analyses have helped spark local development in rural and urban locales across the U.S. Meter’s analyses show, for example, that consumers in western Minnesota spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to buy food, mostly from outside the region. Meanwhile, farmers produce raw commodities that are shipped out of the area, taking millions of dollars of economic development with them.
“We need to question why we subsidize production of raw materials for industrial processing in the name of supporting family farms,” said Meter. “The United States should shift the focus of farm policy debates to communities and away from commodities.”
These presentations come at a time when demand for locally grown food is growing faster than supply and the potential for local foods as economic development is catching the attention of everyone from area farmers to decision makers in Washington, D.C.
“There’s a big opportunity for us in local foods. More money will go to farmers [producing for local markets] because they’re further up the supply chain,” said Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson, Chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee. “It’s a huge opportunity for us to change the landscape and the way things are organized in agriculture, not only in Minnesota but across the country.”
Major sponsors of these presentations are the University of Minnesota’s West Central Regional Partnership, Southwest Initiative Fund and the Land Stewardship Project.
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