On December 2, SACOG held a workshop to share the results of the Local Market Assessment conducted by Valley Vision and Agriculture in Metropolitan Regions (AMR). The workshop participants also gave key input to help in the next phase of research.
Participants identified three opportunity areas: regulations, education, and distribution and processing infrastructure.
Regulation for small operations especially is a major challenge. Streamlining and improving regulations to make licensing and permitting easier will help.
Education includes teaching consumers about where and how to buy local produce. Farmers also can educate consumers of all ages through farm-to-school visits and farmers' markets. Finally, in infrastructure, some of the challenges with distribution could be solved with new locally focused distribution, such as shared processing and distribution.
The Valley Vision and AMR study estimates that the region consumes 2.2 million tons of food per year and produces over 3.4 million tons of food per year, making it a net exporter of food. However, a closer look at data finds that what we eat isn't necessarily what we produce, resulting in a large food flow into and out of the region. As a region we eat twice as much wheat as we produce, 600 times more poultry and 300 times more pork. Conversely, we consume only 2 percent of the rice produced and 6 percent of the tomatoes.
The next local markets workshop is tentatively scheduled for March. To read and comment on the report, visit the RUCS wiki at: www.sacog.org/rucs.