Southwest Iowa Food and Farm Initiative (SWIFFI)

The Southwest Iowa Food and Farm Initiative (SWIFFI) is a multi-county coalition of individuals and organizations that are working to build a regional food system in Southwest Iowa. SWIFFI is currently involved in strategic planning thanks to the generous support of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Iowa West Foundation. click here to go to SWIFFI's website

SWIFFI's Vision - "Our vision is a sustainable regional food system for Southwest Iowa linking production, processing, distribution, and consumption for better health, food security, and community and economic development."

Buy Fresh Buy Local comes to Southwest Iowa

SWIFFI sponsors the Southwest Iowa Chapter of the Iowa Buy Fresh Buy Local Statewide Network.

Wallace Foundation for Rural Research & Development one of several local groups receiving Iowa West Foundation Grants.

The Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development near Lewis received a $20,000 grant from Iowa West Foundation. These monies will be used with the grant from the Leopold Center for strategic planning for growing a regional food system.

“The Iowa West Foundation is an independent, tax exempt private charitable foundation whose mission is to improve lives and strengthen communities for future generations,” officials said on their web site. “We do this by providing leadership, creating partnerships, leveraging resources and serving as a catalyst in identifying and supporting community needs. We fund projects primarily in Council Bluffs and Pottawattamie County, and secondarily in contiguous counties in southwestern Iowa and eastern Nebraska. Iowa West Foundation has a special interest in four focus areas: Community Development and Beautification; Economic Development; Education, and Human and Social Needs.”

As part of the Leopold-funded project to develop a strategic plan for a regional food system, a series of Food Atlases for Adair, Adams, Audubon, Cass, Guthrie, Montgomery, Pottawattamie and Shelby counties are being developed, based on the previous Leopold-funded project Food Atlas for Audubon County (http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/other/files/AudubonCountyFoodSystemAtlas.pdf). click here for the Adair County draft Food Atlas (pdf format). click here for the Adams County draft Food Atlas (pdf format)

Please send comments or suggestions to Holly Born (hollyb@ncat.org or 712-769-2604). We are especially seeking historical food stories and historical and current pictures for each county, so if you or someone you know would like to talk about the food history of your county, we would love to talk with you! "

REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEMS

Southwest Iowans with an interest in regional food systems and local sustainable agriculture attended a planning meeting for an eight-county Regional Food System on Thursday, April 12th at the Cass County Community Center in Atlantic. There were two sessions to accommodate the most number of participants. Ken Meter made a presentation on "Finding Food in Farm Country", speaking about data he has collected on the subject over a number of years and how it relates to the regional food systems. His presentation was followed with a Q&A session. It was a challenging and fascinating presentation. On his website, crcworks.org, in one of the write-ups it notes that one needs to attend several of these presentations to take in all the information because of the detail in it. That certainly is an accurate statement. Included in his presentation was area specific data that brought the issues very close to home.

"This data often gives people a new way of looking at the farm and food economy. The analysis helps local participants gain a deeper knowledge of the conditions they face," said Meter. Those participating in the meeting were from numerous backgrounds including agricultural production, lending, economic development, political, education, health, retail, and others.

This and future gatherings are the first steps in the development of a strategic plan for a Regional Food System for this area. This plan is called for in a $20,000 grant awarded by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Value Chain Partnerships for Sustainable Agriculture to a local group known as the Cultivators. The Cultivators is a working group of the Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development comprised of organizations from Iowa State University Extension, National Center for Appropriate Technology, Cass County Memorial Hospital, Harrisdale Homestead, and Global Horizons. People interested in more information about the Regional Food System study or to be involved at some level should contact Keith Booth at kbooth@iastate.edu.

Cass County Group to Receive $20,000 to Foster Local Food System

Three Iowa communities will receive nearly $50,000 to bolster their efforts to provide more markets and networks for sustainably raised Iowa foods.

[pictured at the left: Front Row, l to r: Emily Krengel (Cass Co Memorial Hospital), Denise
Coder (Cass Co Memorial Hospital), Keith Booth (Wallace Foundation), Holly Born (NCAT - National Center for Appropriate Technology) Back Row, l to r: Steve Olsen (Cass Co Extension Education Director), LaVon Eblen (Harrisdale Homestead)]

The Regional Food Systems Working Group (RFSWG) coordinated by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University has awarded grants and additional technical support to organizations and groups working in southwest Iowa, northeast Iowa and southeast Iowa. The grants include:
* $20,000 to the Cultivators in Cass and surrounding counties of Adair, Adams, Audubon, Montgomery, Pottawattamie and Shelby in southwest Iowa;
* $20,000 to the Northeast Iowa Food and Farm Coalition working in Allamakee, Clayton, Howard, Fayette and Winneshiek counties and,
* $7,300 to the Southeast Iowa Local Food Network in Jefferson, Davis and Van Buren counties.

The grants will be used for planning, assessment, coordination, leadership development and other activities outlined by each group as a result of a special call for projects issued in June by the RFSWG. Funding for these projects is from the Value Chain Partnerships project supported by the Henry A. Wallace Center at Winrock International, with some matching funds from the Leopold Center and Iowa State University.

"Our support for these projects is strategic," explained RFSWG coordinator Rich Pirog, who also directs marketing research at the Leopold Center. "We wanted to invest in groups that are working in defined geographical areas to help them make a better case for local and state investment in regional food businesses and the groups that provide assistance to those businesses."

In southwest Iowa, the Cultivators will develop a strategic plan for their organization, host meetings to gather public input, and offer training opportunities for producers. The group will participate in a vendor fair for Whole Foods in Omaha early next year. The group will begin work in January, after an assistance plan has been developed.

The Cultivators are represented by Keith Booth, Director of the Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development and Holly Born, Program Specialist, National Center for Appropriate Technology, both with offices in Lewis; Steve Olsen, Cass County Extension Education Director; Emily Krengel, Dietician, and Denise Coder, Community Health Coordinator, both with the Cass County Memorial Hospital; LaVon Eblen, co-owner of Harrisdale Homestead and Frank and Kim Spillers, owners of Global Horizons, an entrepreneurial development business.

REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEM FACTS

Does your area need a business or industry that:

• provides jobs?
• creates wealth?
• increases economic development?
• is a mortgage lifter?
• draws additional businesses to the area?
• grows new businesses?
• builds on the current infrastructure?
• adds to quality of life?
• reduces farm debt?
• retains rural population?
• offers opportunities for entrepreneurs?
• sustains rural communities?
• improves health for youth, adults and families?
  

A regional food system supports long-term connections between farmers and consumers while meeting the economic, social, health, and environmental needs of the communities within the region. Producers and markets are linked via infrastructures that are efficient, promote environmental health, provide competitive advantage to producers, processors, and retailers, encourage identification with the region's culture, history, and ecology, and equitably share risks and rewards among all partners in the system.

What is a region? The initial definition of a Southwest Iowa region is based on a community landscape, history, and culture, and includes these counties: Adams, Adair, Cass, Guthrie, Audubon, Shelby, Pottawattamie, and Montgomery.

However, a regional food system is complex and dynamic. It will change and/or grow determined by community leaders, infrastructure, food policy, and all partners in the food system.

• Local food purchases by institutional food buyers in Black Hawk and surrounding counties increased from $110,773 by three institutions in 1998 to $465,361 by 23 institutions in 2004. (Kamyar Enshayan, Director, University of Northern Iowa Local Foods Project.)
• If Iowans ate five servings of fruits and vegetables every day and bought that produce (apples, carrots, spinach, squash and tomatoes) for just three months of the year from local growers the economic impact would net $302 million in total economic output, $112 million in total labor income, and 4,094 jobs in Iowa. Production would require 31,800 acres of cropland or an average of 321 acres per county. (The Economic Impacts of Increased Fruit and Vegetable Production and Consumption in Iowa: Phase II. Swenson, David, et. al. Report to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University. 2006.)
• A diet rich in fruits and vegetables would maximize good health and substantially decrease the rate of diet-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes and could prevent at least 20 percent of all cancer incidence. (Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective. American Institute for Cancer Research, 1997.)
• A local food purchasing policy and county tax incentives for organic production resulted in several new businesses interested in locating in Woodbury County, Iowa. (Rob Marqusee, Woodbury County Economic Development Director.)

CULTIVATORS: GROWING A REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEM

Vision: Building a sustainable regional food system linking production, processing, distribution, and consumption for better health, food security, and community and economic development.

The Cultivators is a group which has worked together several years on projects related to parts of the food system. Their vision is to build Representatives are from:

• Wallace Foundation for Research and Development
• Cass County Extension
• Cass County Memorial Hospital
• Cass County Public Health
• Cornell University Community Nutrition
• Global Horizons
• Harrisdale Homestead
• National Center for Appropriate Technology
• Women, Food and Agriculture
  

Some activities:

• Hosted the first INCA annual meeting in Southwest Iowa
• Two food summit meeting focusing on food policy
• Food mapping exercises
• Bridging the Gap seminar
• Local food served at Cass County Memorial Hospital
• New Growing Food and Profit group formed
• Provided speakers for Progressive Rural Iowa Development Enterprise (P.R.I.D.E.) Community Builders meetings
• Received Leopold Center grants to 1) work with Floyd Boulevard Local
  Foods Market in Sioux City and 2) to develop a regional food system.

The Cultivators are partially funded by the Leopold Center.

The Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development serves residents of the following counties:

Adair - Adams - Audubon - Cass - Carroll - Clark
Crawford - Decatur - Fremont - Guthrie - Madison
Mills - Montgomery - Page - Pottawattomie
Ringgold - Shelby - Taylor - Union