Simply put, FAS is interested in making Good Food – defined as healthy, green, fair, and affordable food – more available for everyone in our society. Each year since the initiative has begun, a growing group of people have gathered for the annual Food and Society networking conference. This year promises a different sort of gathering that will push the growing Good Food Movement forward. Additional information about this year’s conference is available at foodandsociety2008.org.

April 29th – May 1st, 2008 at Wild Horse Pass Resort in Phoenix, Arizona

Who
550 people from across America who are passionate and dedicated participants in the national Good Food Movement. In order to extend the reach and inclusivity of the event, this year the conference team will undertake a nomination process that will help to develop a list of conference participants who will be:

Diverse, in many senses of the word: geography, race/ethnicity, gender, age, category (or categories)
of food system work (e.g., academia, health, foundation, etc.)

• Ready to challenge themselves and others with new ideas and learning.
• Ready to engage in a participative gathering as both contributor and learner. This not for spectatorsor sideline critics!
• Active participants in strategizing/collaborating for the good of the system at the conference and beyond.
• Responsible to bring the experience of the gathering back to their work.
• Developing relationships with others in the field to take their work to the next level.
• Systems change oriented as their default perspective.
• Passionate and committed to action towards healthy, green, fair, and affordable – in other words – Good Food
• First-time attendees to the gathering, which has happened annually since 2000.

 
What
This year, there will be no workshops, few “talking head” plenary sessions, and no panels extolling the virtues of best practices. Participants will experience learning journeys, conversations with frontline project directors leading the way on a range of issues within the Good Food Movement. We’ll explore how change happens and ask ourselves some challenging questions about how and what we want to be together as part of this movement. This gathering aims to move Movement actors from being a “network” into a real community that works together and leads itself on the very real issues of making good food available and accessible. This demands that we shift from our independent agendas to a collective higher purpose – an actualization of what Good Food can grow to become. In the context of changing funding and new questions about sustainability, we will only meet the challenge of growing a Good Food Movement if our direction is based in our relationships to each other and our infinite capacity for collective leadership and powerful, wise action. This is what we hope to do at this gathering – invite your full participation and contribution… definitely, not your typical conference.

Why
The purpose of this FAS conference is two-fold.

• Connect and inspire leadership and community for and among the Good Food Movement in order to take the pulse of the Movement, discover where we can take the Movement next, and to encourage the continued growth of the Movement.
• Absorb and understand the change the Kellogg Foundation has recently undergone, as reflected in its restated mission statement: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families, and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. At the gathering, we’ll get more information about the reason for this shift. We’ll talk about it. We’ll strategize around it. We’ll decide how and if it affects our work. Then we’ll move forward understanding this changing context and deciding how we will create the future of Good Food together.

The Wallace Center at Winrock International has been a key partner in the design and implementation of this conference since 2006.