RATIONALE
A growing number of organizations in the United States, supported by public and private funds, are trying to build food systems that simultaneously reap environmental, social and economic advantages for participants and the broader society.  Yet articulating the parameters of such food systems so that we can measure their growth and build a stronger business case for them has not been done in a credible, rigorous way. 

Building a Stronger Case for Sustainable Food Systems is designed to develop indicators for sustainable community-based food systems (SCBFS), and to use these indicators to assess their current strength in the US and their growth.  The vision guiding this project is one of greater viability and number of food systems that provide access for all communities to a safe and healthy food supply, grown in a manner that protects the environment and adds social and economic value to rural and urban communities.

In this project, the Wallace Center is partnering with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Society (FAS) Program, which has a long-standing interest in supporting the growth of SCBFS. 

OBJECTIVES
The Wallace Center’s goal for this project is to develop indicators used by diverse stakeholders to catalyze change and to measure progress towards community-based food systems that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

This process includes concretely defining SCBFS with input from diverse stakeholders, developing a credible and flexible set of indicators that can be used by different interests for various purposes, pilot-testing the indicators with partners in multiple supply chains, then using these indicators to create a baseline of the current strength of SCBFS in the US food system. 

ACTIVITIES
A Core Group of academic scholars and practitioners from around the country has been assembled to meet regularly and communicate by telephone and e-mail. The group is sharing ideas about food system sustainability, developing an electronic interface to solicit engagement from stakeholders, organizing and conducting additional meetings to solicit input and coordinating other project functions.

The Core Group includes John Fisk, Wallace Center Director; Molly Anderson, Wallace Senior Fellow and Project Manager; Mike Hamm, C.S. Mott Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Michigan State University; Gail Feenstra, Food Systems Analyst, Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program at University of California Davis; and Michael Rozyne, Red Tomato Executive Director.  Additional expertise will be brought into the project as needed.

COUNTRY: United States

For more information about this initiative contact:
Molly D. Anderson, Wallace Senior Fellow
Food Systems Integrity
781-648-6839 
MollyDAanderson@earthlink.net