Driftless Region Food & Farm Project

We will have a packed house for our next Driftless Food and Farm Convention, this FRIDAY, JULY 23 and are looking forward to a productive and insightful day of conversation and planning.  We will start at 10 AM and will conclude the formal agenda with dinner at 5 PM.  We will provide lunch and dinner.  Following dinner we have reserved the meeting space until 7 PM to allow for informal networking.

• Driftless Meeting Final Agenda 7 23 10

The agenda for the day is above.  Featured presenters include Anne Pfeiffer of the UWEX Ag Innovation Center, and CIAS’s Lindsey Day Farnsworth who will discuss the implications of their recent report on Scaling Up.  (Access that report here.)  Also, we will hear from Joan Stockinger from MN’s Cooperative Development Service and Ken Meter of Crossroad Resource Center.  Breakout groups focused on marketing and branding, matching supply and demand, and infrastructure, will work with both to identify strategies for action.

Our hosts are One Straw Farm who will provide us will locally sourced and prepared food.  Directions:

One Sun Farm
S4374 Haugrud Hollow Road
La Farge, WI 54639
(608) 637-6895

Driving Directions From Viroqua, WI
From HWY 14/61…
Turn on HWY 56 East (Decker St.). Follow to HWY 82 and turn LEFT. Follow HWY 82 for approx. 4 miles to Haugrud Hollow , turn LEFT. First farm on RIGHT.

(It appears that Haugrud Hollow is one of the first left turns after County Road S.  I am waiting for confirmation.  Google Maps doesn’t like the address.  Use Mapquest instead.)

I wanted to follow up on the directions in my email yesterday.  I spoke with Dave, our host, and he told me that Haugrud Hollow Road is poorly marked on highway 82.  The turn off for the farm is less than a mile past County Road S.  I will try to post balloons and a sign at the intersection of Haugrud Hollow and 82 and any other confusing junctions by 9:30.

1) Pricing product appropriately, an eternal challenge, is the topic of a recent brief by Driftless Food and Farm partner Mark Olsen of Renaissance Farms. Published by the Wisconsin Agricultural Innovation Center, the brief offers the insights of a local food entrepreneur who has expanded into wholesale and nationwide distribution.  Check it out here.

2) Pat Skogen of Reeson Family Farm just shared with me a publication issued by Farm Aid: Rebuilding America’s Economy with Family Farm-Centered Food Systems.  It has some useful nuggets of wisdom and features insights from our partners Ken Meter (Crossroad Resource Center) and economist Dave Swenson of ISU and the Leopold Center.   (Obligatory Willie Nelson photo below.)

Have you come across a publication or a website that would be of interest to our four-state community?  If so, let us know.

We have been working on a short document that outlines the progress we’ve made thus far and explains to potential partners and funders why we feel the time is right for this project in the Driftless Region. We need your help in two ways:

1) If you have any good farm/market/food systems photos, we would love for you to share them with us. Print quality is critical. (See below for a little more info on what constitutes print quality.) If we use your photo, we certainly will give you credit in the publication.

2) We hope to ask you to flesh out the publication with some brief but memorable quotes from project participants. To guide you, perhaps you could attempt to answer some of the following questions. Remember, all we’re looking for is something quotable, so please don’t spend more than 5 minutes on this.  Please email your replies or post them in the comments section below.

1. Why is creating a cohesive and viable regional food system in the Driftless important or valuable?

2. What kind of difference could this project make to residents and farmers?

3. Why should someone support this project?

Thanks!

Mark

driftlessfoodandfarm@gmail.com

Photo quality:  Our designer  has requested images that are 300+ pixels per in. (ideally about 1mb + , but not lower than about 600kb). Most digital cameras on the high res setting can produce pics that meet the standard.