regional food assessment

Michael Shuman, Project Director for the Northeast Ohio Local Food Assessment and Plan, presents a case for considering the economic development benefits of food localization in Northeast Ohio. Shuman serves as the Director of Research for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a national organization promoting growth of small, locally owned business networks across the country. He is also author of several books, most notably The SmartMart Revolution, and Going Local.

Final version of the Northeast Ohio Local Food Assessment and Plan. Includes case studies of innovative local food activities in Cleveland, Youngstown, Oberlin, and Wooster; an assessment of the current Northeast Ohio Local Food system; a review of the impacts of a 25% food localization scenario; recommendations for achieving the 25% shift; implementation strategies; and detailed references for the report.

An analysis of affinity group clustering following the first four months of the plan. This provides some indicators of strengths and gaps in networks organized around local food systems.

An anlaysis of a survey completed by 70 local food system leaders, practioners, farmers, and others identifying the key assets and gaps of the current regional food system. Includes analysis of key assets, motivations for local food work, levels of confidence in key local food system indicators, and identification of key barriers that reduce growth of local food systems.

Review of key trends in land-use and agricultural enterprise statistics gathered from the USDA census of agricutlure for 1987, 1997, and 2007. Includes graphs and analysis of changes in the number of farms, acreage devoted to farming, and average size of farms in the 16 county Northeast Ohio region.

Review of recommendations from three regional food Congress sessions for Northeast Ohio- 2003, 2008, 2010.

Michael Shuman, Project Director for the Northeast Ohio Local Food System Assessment and Plan, discusses the need to develop a blueprint for a NEO Food Authority as a way to raise some initial capital to finance a variety of key local food meta-businesses. Solving the capital problem, he contends, will unleash a variety of businesses and activities in local food systems and support future growth. He envisions the eventual creation of multiple food authorities to support and capitalize efforts across the NEO region, but emphasizes the need to start with one model organization. The NEO Food Authority would provide a new type of organization that supports more self-sustaining efforts that facilitate a stronger local food economies, from business to business matching to local currencies or consumer mobilization.

Michael Shuman talks about the importance of appropriate government involvement in supporting local food systems. Unfortunately, many current public policies create an uneven playing field that is stacked against local food businesses. Leveling the playing field can include such public policies procurement reforms, zoning and land-use reforms, mobilizing public health services to center campaigns around local food, and looking at opportunities for public employee pension funds to be partially invested in local food-related businesses.

Michael Shuman, project director for the Northeast Ohio Local Food System Assessment and Plan talks about the need to build a supporting infrastructure for local food systems to increase opportunities and reduce barriers to entry for farmers and food entrepreneurs. He refers to the local food assessment recommendations for creating food hubs, kitchen incubators, and processing facilities to provide access to equipment and facilities that, in many cases, would be too expensive for businesses to afford on their own. Stronger facilities for processing, packing, and distribution can expand the scope of activity in the local food economy and get the region closer to the goal of 25% localization.

Michael Shuman, project director for the Northeast Ohio Local Food System Assessment and Plan, talks about what it means to achieve a 25% localization of the NEO food system. He makes the important point that localization spans across the almost 60 sectors of the local food economy and should not be exclusively focused on raw foodstuffs. In some sectors of our food economy, there already is significant localization and local business ownership already. Farming and ranching are two areas where there is a significant gap between what is consumed locally and what is produced locally. About 35% of the potential jobs in a 25% localization would come in farming and ranching activities.