Report Back from the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference

Local Matters' Director of Public Policy and Community Relations, Noreen Warnock, attended the 5th Annual Taking Root National Farm to Cafeteria conference in Detroit last month.

Here are some of her thoughts: 

"The conference provided an important opportunity to learn more from others in the local food system movement, to network, especially with people from our Great Lakes Region of the National Farm to School Network and to share what Local Matters is doing in Central Ohio. A highlight of the conference for me was meeting Janet Poppindieck an author whom I have admired for many years. Please check out her important books, Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement and Free for All:Fixing School: Food in America. Local Matters is planning to host Janet Poppendieck in Columbus during Local Foods Week - October 2-8."

Taking Root: 5th National Farm to Cafeteria Conference
Detroit, MI, May 17 - 19, 2010
www.farmtocafeteriaconference.org

706 people attended the conference from 44 states & DC, 6 Canadian provinces, Brazil and the Netherlands - the most of any Farm to Cafeteria conference to date! As you apply all the information you learned to your work, we hope that you stay involved in the National Farm to School Network. View the Network contact sheet for your local Regional Lead Agency contact, and visit our website, www.farmtoschool.org.  To stay posted of future Farm to Cafeteria conferences and other conferences hosted by the Community Food Security Coalition, sign up for the conference announcement email list.

Conference Media and Materials Online
There is a plethora of information posted online from the conference.  We got quite a bit of press attention, from local and national press, newspapers and TV.  We have posted several examples of conference press, as well as links to all the information listed below, on the conference website: http://farmtocafeteriaconference.org/5/materials

Workshop presentations and handouts are being posted on Slideshare.net as we receive them.  (It’s not too late to submit your materials!  Email them to submissions@foodsecurity.org with the title of the workshop.)  The Farm to Cafeteria 50x20 slideshow presented during the Tuesday morning plenary is also available on Slideshare.

We also have posted video recordings of the keynote by Kathleen Merrigan, USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, as well as the Real Food Is… YouTube contest acceptance speech by 5th grader Olivia Farrell from Lincoln Elementary School, Mount Vernon, Washington.

Handouts from the National Farm to School Network which were included in your packet are also available on the conference website.  This includes two handouts about the Network contacts and media presence, and three about Federal policy issues related to Farm to School.

Finally, you can view photos from the conference and the subsequent community service project and FoodCorps Summit on Flickr.  Do you have photos from the event to share?  You can post them on the conference Facebook page, or email them to submissions@foodsecurity.org to be posted online.

We hope to see you again at the next National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in 2012.

Sincerely,

The National Farm to School Network