Midtown Wednesdays

Building Networks: Strengthening Relationships with our Farming Community & Accelerating Local Food Entrepreneurship

There are many leaders in our region thinking and acting on strengthening local food networks.

Kari Moore, Program Coordinator, for the Local FoodWorks Initiative, Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy is one regional leader who thinks about food entrepreneurship. She has offered suggestions about exciting projects on the ground for future forums. You can read about the Local FoodWorks Program here. Kari can be contacted at Tel: 330.657.2178/Cell: 216.225.6311/Email: kmoore@cvcountryside.org.

Regional food leaders think in terms of connected food sheds. How can building open networks support buying from local restaurants? What kind of infrastructure needs to be built to strengthen and increase activity around local food entrepreneurship?

Building open economic networks (mutually economically beneficial collaborations) begins with building relationships with local farmers. New research can address what the challenges may be to doing this and how to accelerate building sustainable networks.

Here are Kari's suggestions for who to keep a look out for and support:
ASIA: Asian Services in Action, Inc.
Contact: May Chen, MA, LPCC, Executive Director
email: may.chen@asiainc-ohio.org
These folks started a community garden project in the mid-town area a while back and were interested in revitalizing that project.

CLEVELAND ORIGINALS: They are working to promote locally owned restaurants in Cleveland and may have interesting info to share. Contact: Myra Orenstein, tel: 216.932.3322

Additional ideas include:
THE LEARNING GARDEN/Cleveland Botanical Garden contact Maurice Small 216.849.8224
CITY FRESH: contact Brad Masi 440.774.2906

posted by Unknown @ 6/17/2006