October 28-31, 2000 accommodations | schedule Co-sponsors: Friends of the Farmers' Markets, New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, The Food Depot, City of Santa Fe Community Services Department Association

Saturday October 28 7:30 am - Sunday, October 29, 5 pm
Rio Grande Food and Farm Trails
Experience a fabulous two day autumn tour along the legendary Rio Grande River in historic northern New Mexico. Visit the new Angel Depot food bank in Santa Fe; the Santa Fe Farmers' Market, one of the best in the US, where you'll enjoy the aroma of fresh roasted chile; and Rancho Las Golondrinas, a working museum of farming history at a Spanish hacienda. See traditional family farms specializing in organic production of vegetables and other crops, and a working cattle ranch that focuses on community development through collaboration with local ranchers. We'll sightsee a bit as well, hiking back in time to Native American cliff ruins. On Saturday night, you'll stay at the renowned Ghost Ranch in the Abiquiu red mountains, gazing at the stars as an astronomer guides you through our galaxies. Transportation, meals and lodging are included.

Sunday, October 29, 7:30 am - 1:30 pm
Agriculture and Urbanization in Albuquerque
This half day tour will provide a sample of the history of agriculture in Albuquerque and a driving tour of the farmland in the middle Rio Grande Valley. The tour will begin at the Cal-Maine, a commercial egg operation that has over 350,000 birds. The Cal-Maine farm is a good example of an agri-business farm. Be warned that commercial animal operations are designed to produce a product, and some people may find the conditions objectionable. From Cal-Maine, the tour will continue up the Rio Grande Valley and visit several stops of historic farming significance in the Valley. The tour will make its next stop at the Rio Grande Community Farm, and continue to El Pinto restaurant. El Pinto has been a New Mexico favorite for many years. You will be able to sample many of the traditional Northern New Mexico foods. After lunch, the tour will continue north through the farm fields of the pueblos and to Santa Fe.

7:30 am - 1:30 pm
Santa Fe Food, Community, and History
This half day tour will start with a visit to the newly constructed Angel Depot which supplies over 50 food assistance programs in 7 counties serving 30,000 people in Northern New Mexico. Then we will be off to the Community Farm, where John Stevenson and many volunteers grow 10 acres of fruits and vegetables, all of which go to charitable giving programs in the city. Once we are downtown, we will take a short break to check into the Hotel and then continue on with a lively walking tour of historical Santa Fe.

SHORT COURSES 2:30 - 6:00 pm

Urban Agriculture
Led by: Jac Smit, Urban Agriculture Network and Pat Gray, The Food Project

Are you planning an urban agricultural enterprise? Or just need some tips and skills to help you improve your existing project. The this short course is for you. This interactive course will focus on the essential aspects of business planning, market analysis, identification of opportunities and possible partners, organizational structure, and community mapping. It will incorporate lessons learning from the youth farming experience of The Food Project and domestice and international experience of The Urban Agriculture Network. Handouts documenting best practices will be distributed.

From Farm-to-School: How to make direct connections that nourish bodies, minds, and communities
Led by: Michelle Mascarenhas, Occidental College; Rodney Taylor, Santa Monica Unified School District; Liz Wheeler, Hartford Food System (invited); Jered Lawson, Berkeley Food Systems Project (invited)

Come learn different strategies for introducing farm-direct produce into the lunchroom. Lessons will be drawn from programs in Southern California; Hartford, Connecticut; South Florida; New York; and other regions. Participants will have a chance to brainstorm in small groups on how to identify and overcome barriers in getting school food service directors to work with local farmers, getting farmers to deliver produce to schools, and getting food services to work with fresh products.

Telling the Story of Food Security
Stuart Nunnery, Campaign for Food Literacy

This entertaining and interactive mini-course will explore how communicators, educators and community leaders can more effectively communicate the vision and values of food security to an increasingly diverse public and professional audience. Participants will learn to identify and use current trends in communications and social marketing, including multiple media formats, popular culture and humor to raise the presence of food security issues on the national radar screen. Ultimately, through a series of creative skill-building tasks and techniques, a framework will emerge for a provocative and long term identity and outreach campaigns.
Putting Community Food Security Policy into Action at the Local, State and Federal Levels
Led by: Linda Elswick, CFSC; Mark Winne, Hartford Food System; Margaret Krome, Michael Fields Agriculture Institute; Ed Barron (invited), legislative aide, Office of Senator Leahy; Virgil Conrad (invited), Southeast Regional Director, Food and Nutrition Service, US Department of Agriculture

This course will help you to better understand the policy-making process at the federal, state, and local levels. The local and state food policy discussion will consider the opportunities and process for influencing food policy and food security at the local and state levels of government. The workshop will specifically help you to be a more effective advocate during the bill-making and appropriations processes as well as in gaining successful implementation of your legislation through administrative advocacy.

A Taste of Northern New Mexico Reception
Come relax, meet old friends and make new ones while savoring the view of the town plaza and surrounding mountains from La Fonda Hotel's La Terraza Room. Locally grown food and drink will be showcased.

Monday October 30 - Tuesday October 31
Roundtable: Food security and social justice: Effects on consumers, farmers, communities, and the environment
Moderator: Mike Hamm, Rutgers University
Ben Burkett, Mississippi Association of Cooperatives
Hope Finkelstein, Growing Power
Judith Heffernan, Heartland Network for Town and Rural Ministries
Marion Nestle, New York University

What has been the effect of the corporate food system on communities? The environment? Farmers? Consumers? How can a community food security approach build a food system that incorporates social justice? Is a just food system possible in a market economy? A panel comprised of community activists, farmers, and academics will explore these issues as well as lay out their vision for change how the food system needs to change. They will describe the positive community food security efforts happening in their communities as the groundwork for that change.

The Garden of Eden: Faith Communities Engaging Community Food Security as Agents of Change
The session presentation will provide insight into examples of ongoing projects and programs of various faith communities and how to bridge the gaps between church projects & programs, available social service programs and the for profit corporate sector, utilizing the strength of the faith based organizations as the foundation for strength and change, creating new opportunities for partnerships.

Water, the Border, and Arid Land: Regional ssues of the Southwest and Their Effects on Local Food Security Efforts
This workshop will profile the neighborhood group Mujeres Unidas (Women United), from Tucson, AZ, their food security efforts, and the challenges to these efforts posed by the following issues: water, the border, arid climate, language/cultural differences, transportation, geographic/ political/economic isolation, and access to educational, health and recreational resources.

Community Food Project Grantee Forum
Project directors with experience in planning and implementing a community food project will discuss the challenges and opportunities they have had. Panelists will discuss comprehensive approaches to food, farm, and nutrition issues detailing personal experiences that ahve led to both successes and lessons learned in their local projects.

International Links on Community Food Security: What North Americans Can Contribute and Learn
Panel members will share a wide range of recent experiences abroad looking at community food systems and community food security practices. These include international policy initiatives and innovative local practices, successful urban agriculture models, and community food security approaches being followed in the UK, Netherlands, and Canada. The workshop will show how North Americans can learn from - and contribute to - these efforts to relocalize food systems and resist industrial agriculture.

Urban Gardening with WIC Clients
Attendees will learn how to start and sustain WIC community gardens in their local community, get involved with existing projects and build a grassroots food security movement.

Edible Connections: A Model to Facilitate Dialogue on Community Food Security
In an effort to improve public discourse about food system issues, we have developed a model for conducting public forums called Edible Connections. These forums are one-day events that include segments on how people relate to food as consumers and professionals, and how food connects people to the environment and each other. Workshop participants will learn about the elements of the Edible Connections model and how to organize a forum in their community.

Cooking with Kids
Cooking with Kids uses interdisciplinary hands-on methods to increase acceptance of nutritious foods, modleling healthy culturally diverse food choices in elementary school classrooms and school cafeterias. This workshop will include a brief history of the program and a slide show that shows children cooking in their classrooms.

Defining a Food Security Agenda
Considerable work has been done to establish anti-hunger agendas. But what food security advocates stand for is much less clear. The session will focus on developing an agenda for food security. Our objective is to develop a set of policy and action objectives that can apply across a spectrum of food security, including household, community, and national focus.

Re-entry Farming Initiatives
Efforts are expanding in several parts of the country to help immigrants with agrarian backgrounds to re-enter agriculture in the USA. This session will feature two or three such projects from different areas that have a community food security emphasis.

Community-based planning: Options for Protecting Acequia Irrigated Farmland in Northern New Mexico
The panel will present community-based approaches to address suburbanization's threats to the extremely limited amounts of irrigated farmland in this arid region. The session will outline various efforts underway in the area to help local commnities planning for development to protect agricultural resources.

Food System Enterpreneurship through Farmers' Markets
This panel will explore the trends in value-added production and marketing approaches that small-scale farmers have adopted through their experiences at farmers' markets, especially in low-income communities. We will facilitate a lively dialogue on the challenges and opportunities of direct marketing in low-income areas through farmers' markets.

More than an urban-rural connection: Direct marketing Models in the Midwest
The state of Minnesota provides funding for low -income families to purchase Minnesota-grown foods. This workshop will describe this program as well as the food circles model employed in Missouri.

Shaking the Federal Money Tree
This interactive workshop will discuss how to put together well-designed projects; identify federal programs reasonably likely to support them; and write grants to those programs successfully.

Healthy Farms, Healthy Kids
Lessons from farm-to-school projects from across the country will be discussed. Learn how communities are supporting local farmers while improving nutrition in schools.

State Food Policy Councils
This workshop will examine newly formed food policy councils at the state level in Iowa and Connecticut. Specific challenges and opportunities for acting at the state level will be discussed.

Developing a 2002 Farm Bill Platform
CFSC Policy Committee members will lead an interactive workshop designed to gain your input into crafting a policy platform for the 2002 Farm Bill. Come make your thoughts known and matter!

The Challenge of Inclusiveness in the Community Food Security Movement
From its inception, the CFSC has defined outreach to low-income communities, inclusiveness and diversity of membership and leadership as core values and core activities. Nevertheless, grass roots people from low-income communities and communities of color still have inadequate representation in the Coalition and in the community food security movement. This workshop will include case studies of initiatives that model inclusiveness, ideas for building a local affiliate structure and a discussion of barriers to greater grass roots involvement in the movement.We invite grass roots people engaged in community food security work to participate in this workshop so that we can document effective solutions to the challenge of inclusiveness.

Developing Common Initiatives between Anti-Hunger and Food Security Advocates
Continuing discussions held at last year's conference between food security and anti-hunger activists, this year's workshop will focus on specific activities we can work on together.