Driftless Region Food & Farm Project

One of our regional partners, Lanesboro Local, recently announced an open position:

MARKET DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Lanesboro Local, Inc., a nonprofit local foods initiative based in Lanesboro, MN, seeks an organized, visionary professional to further develop its local foods business model. The market development director will work with specialty crop producer members to expand product lines and encourage licensed processing, optimize regional food sales in the downtown Marketplace, promote local foods and artisanal goods, and manage administrative tasks in cooperation with an active Board of Directors.

The ideal candidate will have experience with small scale retail food operations, small business development and sustainable agriculture; will relate openly to diverse groups of people; and will enjoy working in a vibrant small town.

This position is funded for one year, with the possibility of extension. Salary is negotiable and competitive.

A full job description is available at www.LanesboroLocal.org. To apply, submit a letter of application, resume, two references and a writing sample to jobs@lanesborolocal.org by November 8, 2010.

Remember we have our next Food and Farm meeting on Tuesday, October 19 in Decorah, Iowa.  If you haven’t yet RSVP’d, please do so immediately by visiting the NE Iowa Food and Fitness page.  Also, please let us know to expect you by sending a quick email.

UW’s Agricultural Innovation Center Offers  Grantwriting Classes

Are you looking for ways to develop your innovative agricultural business?

Sign up for one of four workshops designed to help you identify which federal and state grants might be right for you.  This workshop will also discuss ways to plan your project and strengthen your application. More information is available at: http://bit.ly/bc4Sgd

Four sessions will be offered across Wisconsin at the following locations.  Click on the link above for registration information:

• Monday, November 1st – 9:30 AM To 3:00 PM
  Northeast Technical College, 2740 West Mason St, Rm Sc128, Green Bay, WI

• Thursday, November 4th – 9:30 AM To 3:00 PM
  Village of Lake Hallie Hall, 13033 30th Ave, Chippewa Falls, WI

• Wednesday, December 1st – 9:30 AM To 3:00 PM
  Dodger Bowl, 318 King St, Dodgeville, WI

• Thursday, December 9th – 9:30 AM To 3:00 PM
  Oconomowoc Lake Club, 4668 Lake Club Circle, Oconomowoc, WI
  
  

The agenda for the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Conference on October 19 in Decorah has been released and the Driftless Food and Farm Project has a place in it.    We have a 75-minute breakout session in the afternoon beginning at 1:15. With our time we plan to introduce the project, facilitate networking among professionals from around the region and augment the strategy map we began to build at the last meeting.

Please consider joining us.  We have reserved two vans to transport people from the Madison/ SW WI area. One van leaves on Monday 10/18 around noon, the other at a time TBD on either Monday or early Tuesday.  A limited number of travel scholarships may be available.  If you are interested in joining us please email us.  For carpool requests, use our blog’s comments section.

For more info on the conference itself, you can visit the conference website here. The agenda is here. Registration is free and requested by October 8.  Much of the conference is devoted to the constellation of issues surrounding farm to school programs.

Finally, in case you missed it, you can access a copy of our recent Driftless promotional document, released last month, on the blog as well.

Hope to see you in a few weeks.

Driftless Food and Farm Publication Released

In response to the outcomes of our series of meetings during the past year, the team behind Driftless Food and Farm and UW-Madison CIAS recently issued a short promotional document to highlight the context and need for an organization such as ours and to highlight some of our recent activities.  Click her to download the report. Use the comment section below to let us know what you think.

We will have copies available in Decorah in October, or email us if you’d like hard copies to distribute.