Read the whole draft
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What Does Success Look Like?
This is not a formal document; it’s more like a spillover, i.e, not polished for public consumption, but could be used to infect a community of ideas.
The following is a draft response to the question, “What does success look like?” if we seek to build a food system that prioritizes local health and resilience. The definition of local can and should zoom in or out to include neighborhood/county/state/ or regional boundaries for different parts or settings of this discussion, but the guiding principles remain steady. They include:
The focus on local is not meant to be a selfish or exclusionary framework. To the contrary we recognize that in an increasingly volatile world, it is pragmatic and ethical to take responsibility for local needs and capacities that we can identify and influence, even if our ultimate aim is to citizens in a just, global society. This is true whether the volatility stems from climate, geopolitics or other forces buffeting us.
Whatever systems we build need to incorporate principles of ecosystem health, and the vitality of biodiversity, in humans and other biological communities, from soil on up. Like it or not, Earth is ultimate arbiter.
Government is only one component of the participation needed to achieve success, and it can only function well if citizens are engaged.
In the 1950s Montana produced ~70% of its own food. Currently Montana relies on imports for ~97% of its food. (from 2022 report by Highland Economics, commissioned by Grow Montana coalition: (https://growmt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Economic-Impact-of-Local-Foods-8.5-%C3%97-11-in-1-combined-1.pdf) (The current dominance of food imports exists in spite of large exports of some commodities). Our reliance on California and a few other states for many components of our diets will not be robust in the long haul, and industrialization of those supplies is already compromising quality and fair labor practices. We need to turn the import:export ratio upside-down again. Not because trade is bad, but because resilience is healthy.
Building a vibrant food system is a tool for economic health, in the best and broadest sense of the word, economy.
This is undoubtedly an incomplete draft. Let it be a straw man that we can modify and find all our diverse niches within.
Key elements of success are:
1 Growing number of farmers and farms of different sizes;
2 Farms are resilient, adapting to ongoing climate shifts;
3 Local, sustainably-grown food is a priority for purposes of resilience and health, imports/exports are not prohibited, but are not primary;
4 Food tastes good, and is nutritious;
5 Farmers and all citizens understand that healthy ecosystems, including soils, water, air and biodiversity within and beyond the farm gate, are foundational to vibrant food systems. Farm practices reflect this;
6 Citizens know how to prepare and enjoy locally grown food;
7 Citizens understand that healthy food is foundational to personal and public health;
8 Distribution and processing networks enable year-round food access. and aim for minimal processing;
9 Farmers and processors know each other and collaborate to build and meet growing demand for local food;
10 Finance systems includes a network of diverse public/private tools;
11 Montana institutions have access to and promote Montana-grown healthy and tasty food (schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.);
12 Montana’s education, recreation, governance and investment cultures value access to healthy, local food for all, and will innovate to do so;
13 Farming is a respected occupation with fair wages;
14 Farming as part-time job or productive hobby for recreation and resilience is also a respected and enjoyable part of local culture; this will include hunting and foraging to the extent ecosystems allow;
15 Diverse ownership structures constitute the farm economy;
16 Pathways to farm ownership are available for those who want it;
17 Farm infrastructure is improving as demand grows;
18 Government policies enable a healthy farm and food system; this will require integration of the guiding principles above into zoning policy and enforcement, infrastructure development; social services; taxation policies; local/state interaction, tribal relations, conservation policy, public health regulation, and so on.
What is needed to achieve these elements of success?
Everyone who enters the realm of food systems change identifies with different portals of entry, including the entryways of:
Food Production: farmers, ranchers, gardeners, farm infrastructure builders;
Food Purveyors: stores, restaurants, farmers markets, on-line and on-farm sales;
Processors: local, statewide, regional;
Distributors: local, statewide, regional;
Landowners;
Land Trusts;
Community Finance and Investment;
Government and Regulation: city, county, state and other;
Tribal communities via indigenous food traditions, education and empowerment toward food sovereignty;
10. Educators: pre-school through higher education, including non-school venues, and farm-to-school partners;
11. Food Bank network and affiliated food security partners;
12. Health care and wellness workers;
13. Eaters.
Everyone can find a niche in this assemblage, usually more than one. This guarantees that food system development is not a linear process amenable to top-down edicts, but it is amenable to community involvement through a range of skills, social, and financial commitments. Food systems transcend partisan boundaries and other divisions among us. They reveal opportunities and challenges for developing resilience in volatile times.
Not everyone agrees on how stark the imperative for change really is. Some of us see evidence that our current supply chain, dominated by imports from a few states in the West and Midwest, is extremely vulnerable to climate and other versions of volatility. Others see monopolistic practices across several sectors as the core driver of vulnerability (seeds, crops, meat, grocery chains)* Some disruptions to food security are already underway and show ample signs of worsening in coming decades.** The recent pandemic exposed the supply chain fragility, but the seemingly rapid post-pandemic recovery diffuses the alarm in many peoples’ eyes.
Similarly, the anomalous prosperity of the Gallatin Valley masks underlying insecurity for all of us, privileged or not. Regardless of where you stand along that spectrum of concern, it is indisputable that even the status quo in our food system embodies inequity and instability, despite the current abundance in most American grocery stores. The bottom line is, we do not all share exactly the same sense of urgency. Even within ourselves as individuals, many of us vacillate between panic, inspired action, simmering worry, positive micro-steps, and peculiar complacency in order to make it through our daily lives. That is probably part of human nature. In any case, a combination of rapid and slow change is probably what is needed, what is feasible, and what is already underway. The question is, how can we find and coordinate our numerous, diverse niches in that complicated fabric, and who can lead the overall change?
I don’t know who or what can lead it, but if we are to figure that out, we need something akin to a common vision of what we want in our food system. That won’t emerge from one person or one institution, and neither Government nor the private sector will succeed alone.
Within the last year, the City of Bozeman tasked a group of staff and consultants to map out our local food system in the context of preexisting City efforts to build a “climate smart” Bozeman. That group has been surveying a wide array of people. This comes on the heels of a few decades of diverse private and public sector projects in Bozeman and around the state and the world to understand and improve food systems; there is a substantial pool of experience to draw from. To see if we can all nudge ourselves in a common direction, it might be useful to ask, in one document, whether and how the city and private sectors (for-profit and non-profit) can move us toward a pragmatic framework for a healthier system, even if it’s not a comprehensive plan.
[Here are some primitive notes to jumpstart the thinking. Each recommendation below needs to be tweaked to fit the public/private lenses but merging them here shows how essential collaboration will be. Some of these recommendations will likely sound very general, vague, or even off-target. Particular relevant examples of actions or comments are inserted in italics to help illustrate the ideas. This initial listing is not sorted according to which problem each recommendation addresses, e.g. land access, a commodity-dominated food economy, rapid population growth in Montana, income inequality, and so forth. That is both confusing and intentional; it illustrates how intertwined our problems and opportunities are .]
What can the City do? / What can the private sector do?
Filter every decision through local and regional food security lens; this is not meant to displace the diverse and wonderful passions that constitute our community, everything from school sports to the arts to wilderness advocacy to health care….it only illustrates that we will undermine everything if we don't plan for that one thing….the food system…to be as good as it can be. Everything from water-resource development, zoning, road design and other city-county infrastructure develop will influence our capacity for resilience in the food realm, by default or design. Our choice.
Build on existing collaborations with food resilience in mind; e.g. HRDC, MFBN, Bozeman Health, etc.)
Develop a clearinghouse of information on who is doing what; to help people identify their own niche, to avoid reinventing wheels or stepping on each others’ toes, to help identify missing tasks and resource needs, etc.
Build relationships with neighboring County and town governments and businesses with the food filter in mind; Belgrade/Bozeman and the County recently held an interdisciplinary meeting with consultants from the Urban Lands Institute. Revisit that recording and impose a food filter on it; we won’t significantly develop food resilience if we don’t cross those boundaries.
Don’t assume that linearly decreasing density from the center-of-city outward is always best for local resilience; just listen to the recent Bozeman uproar about top-down zoning interpretations and declarations. Revisit the whole controversy through a food filter, and include more than lawyers in the discussion.
Work to protect and/or change zoning laws in a way that builds and allows for future for urban and other local agriculture, local food security, generational shifts the economy, in transportation, in cultural expectations, etc.); in other words, don’t assume that our current trajectory of population and income is permanent, or even very long. This doesn’t mean that we have to predict catastrophe; it only means that we are likely to improve quality of life for everyone if start immediately to put the well-being of “essential workers” and everybodys’ children higher in the decision-making framework. In the long run, that will help the affluent folks too.
Consider current litigation regarding state vs. local control on development in light of food system decision-making; the merits and demerits of ‘both sides’ are not always trivial to identify, unravel and reform. Assemble an interdisciplinary team of food filter volunteers to understand and perhaps advocate in this realm.
Expand vocabulary of what kinds of development could take place if the city sought out different developers rather than waited to see what proposals show up on the planning desks; Land trust personnel in Montana are already tuned in to a lot of such information inside and outside Montana. Could a team of volunteers build on this and help educate local government about what is possible? Peter Brown, formerly of GVLT, and community land trust folk in Missoula are both MT resources on they front, and there are others.
Interview local business people that may have learned from their successes and failures about what has worked, what has failed, and what they want now that they see Bozeman changing: for e.g., Patrick Kainz of MAP brewery once began designing a development south of Bozeman that would have included ag land for a CSA, dense housing, and wild edges. He even hired an architect and landscape designer. I’m sure he had good reasons for aborting that mission. Let’s explore that history, and consider taking the ideas seriously elsewhere in our community.
Question and contradict old stereotypes about the ag economy and the urban-rural divide where evidence and opportunity demand it; for example, > 10 years ago the Gallatin County Commissioners travelled to Fort Collins, CO to learn about the Larimer County experience with rapid development. One commissioner/extension agent said to G.County Commissioner Bill Murdoch, “Whatever you do, don’t let your county suffer death by agriculture”. I interpret that remark to mean that extension agent perceived agriculture only through the eyes of older, tired, end-of-career commodity farmers who saw their land’s future only through the conventions of subdivision growth and a hunger for a retirement fund, because their farms hadn’t been able to build that legacy through ag. Lets not let our gov’t leaders and farmers suffer from such a failure of imagination. Some of that has already happened, but it’s not too late to learn from mistakes.
Integrate affordable housing into every use of the food filter: Start by ditching the term “Workforce Housing” and return to “Affordable Housing”, a term that categorizes bricks and boards, rather than human beings. Farm-afilliated housing could be one subset, but other clustered housing strategies are equally relevant. Research innovations that are underway elsewhere, for example in Maine a group of people have designed 3D-printed affordable, attractive homes with energy-efficient, creative shapes made from by-products of Maine’s forestry industry… Could MT learn from that? Farms need owners and employees who have a home, on or near their work. From another perspective, resurrect gardening as an integral consideration of what we mean by housing. Maybe the oceans of lawns in Gallatin Valley’s existing sprawl could provide some retroactive assistance to the food filter.
Launch and support existing entrepreneurial projects in the production, processing and distribution realms of our local food system; Emily Wolfe and Jeremy Nadison are starting a podcast (called Food, Montana) that envisions and builds a strong culture around investing in local and regional food systems in Montana with myriad, diverse nodes and connections. Tune in, listen, and engage.
Consider restructuring fees and zoning regulations to incentivize or at least stop inhibiting local food resilience; make Farmers’ Market participation less costly for new farmers by finding ways to subsidize fees. Explore restrictions or revisions of Homeowner association covenants or other regulations that impair local food development. Reevaluate all zoning regulations in light of the food filter, and foster a youth-led community movement to turn this into a positive campaign rather than a reflexive partisan harangue.
Support food-relevant education at all levels while thinking carefully about what is best done in the public and private sectors; this covers a lot: cooking with local food, nutrition, health, farming and ranching; pre-K through 12++ ; it could infiltrate almost every discipline in our schools and elsewhere; Matt and Jacy Rothschiller have already integrated education programs into much of their farm operation…Find ways to support their leadership and encourage others to develop their own different versions of on- and off-farm food and ag education.
Ask everyone to make their own wish list of what they would like to see in their neighborhood with the food filter in mind; Here’s mine: I hope we can build on the community of farmers that has started to nucleate around two of the oldest homesteads in the valley (now Amaltheia, Thirteen Mile, Kokoro, Three Seed Farm, Rathvinden) in the Reese Creek area. We still have affordable housing and other infrastructure issues to address, and a neighboring piece of land that would be excellent for growth and education if there was financial help, but the ideas, food, and commerce are underway. Other neighborhoods could build their own versions of embryonic projects, each with its own site-specific strengths and weaknesses. Community nuclei of off-grid energy centers could increase the resilience of each of these neighborhoods.
Place new farmer recruitment high on the list of priorities, while recognizing that it can only happen as fast as the support system allows: the Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems program (SFBS), and the Indigenous Food Program at MSU are inoculants, but community partners will be necessary to achieve results after graduation. Last Fall in Mary Stein’s Capstone class in SFBS, only 1 or 2 out ~30 seniors said they planned to farm after graduation, but when the question was flipped to ask “how many of you would farm if the barriers to entry weren’t so overwhelming?” ~75%+ raised their hands. That group of students then turned their Capstone project into a research effort on Land Access for farming in the Gallatin Valley. As one part of their research, they surveyed students in the natural-resource-related departments and found similar results. Our problem is not lack of interest.
Could the current and future mayors pursue this food lens? Their interest, and leadership could prove important, even vital. They will need help.
Launch a Community Investment Strategy that funnels a portion of existing local wealth toward food and farming resilience: A group of farmers has already begun to lay out some foundational ideas for this mindset (see RIFF - Resilience Innovation in Farming and Food) but needs to light a fire under itself. Convene a group of conventional local investors (DA Davidson, Edward Jones, etc. to do some brainstorming about how to set this up and publicize… Ideas about a “Food Fund” have been floating around this valley for years, but key decision-making about how to administer it, and how to prioritize projects must advance before it can become real. Or is that even the right tool? Of course, the Gallatin Valley has already demonstrated substantial related philanthropy in this realm (Food Bank-Warming Center-Fork and Spoon, restaurant-farmer collaborations, etc etc.). All that’s missing is the reframing of the term Food Security…its an issue for everyone, not a segregated ‘other’ group.
Note: Only a fraction of this list is suitable for public sector initiatives; I doubt we’d want the government to take on too much even if that was financially feasible. Furthermore, this list is only a small fraction of the ideas that have already been discussed inside and outside this valley by food-interested farmers and citizens. Rather than be overwhelmed by that, we perhaps should see in it the ingredients of a movement, in which farmers and sometimes government entities are merely the catalysts. Sometimes the most important government tasks will be to figure out how to get out of the way; sometimes officials will work to change and implement laws in innovative new directions; and sometimes they will help inspire a movement by viewing mundane government day-to-day decisions through the food lens.