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Community building: How to foster collaboration between food system stakeholders to focus and strengthen collective action? Actions urgently needed: 1) Build the next generation of farmers – critical actors- by educating students and providing them with real-world experiences in farming, community building, and advocating for food rights and sustainability. Integrate food sustainability and security as a component of the political agenda for local elected officials so that they are accountable and connected with the interests of this topic alongside organizations driving for change. The crea... Lire la suitetion of a formal Committee with stakeholders across the ecosystem will yield the greatest returns -- Faith-based organizations, educators, youth, non-profit orgs, relevant special interest groups, and elected officials. Most pressing is ensuring that the actual groups affected most by this challenge have a voice and are a part of this Committee. They should be valued and present at the table for solutions. 2) Give more visibility to mental health and well-being as components of the need for food security, nutrition, and access. The ecosystem of advocacy on this topic should also include mental health professional’s voices. 3) K-12 engagement is critical to building a pipeline for food system advocacy, including future farmers. 4) Integrate the systems approach with the end-user being the community member. Critical to engage them to learn about their pain points in order to create solutions (don’t assume). 5) Encourage, fund, and educate traditional farmers on new technologies to yield higher nutritional crops by using hydroponic and aquaponic. Lire moins

Youth Power: How young people can help shift help shift food systems towards increased sustainability and climate resilience Actions urgently needed: 1) Increase Youth knowledge on gardening 2) Use technology (social media, apps) to integrate youth into the agri-food system 3) Have young people talking to young people helps engage younger generations 4) Have organizations led by young people to partner with school districts to engage high school students 5) Create a community education component on food systems and community growing in higher education 6) Work on aquaponics system with youth 7... Lire la suite) Use waste from tilapia growing system to grow lettuce 8) Education initiative to get young volunteers involved—incorporate lifestyle (example fishing) into food system education 9) Increase communication on opportunities in food system: market, job opportunities, financial perspectives Lire moins

Making food systems more inclusive: The role of minorities in food systems Actions urgently needed: 1) Increase funding • State level funding could give opportunities to community gardens for access to food. • Give opportunity to growing food locally and distributing, rather than outsourcing foods (ex from California to Miami). Food that travels leads to food waste • Fund local farmers to avoid this issue • Funds (16 bil) weren’t given to rural farmers, only to a select few. Funds weren’t used to increase wages for farmers. 2) Give control back to communities. Rural communities sho... Lire la suiteuld have access to land for community farming focus on people of color Co-op farming to support real resilience. Actionable Step #1: Make SNAP available to ex-felons in state of Florida. Introduce new legislations. Step #2: Farm to food model, create entrepreneurship opportunities to teach children to grow and give access to food in local communities. Step #3: Initiatives started to have farming Co-ops. Address supply chain model issues and give control back to rural communities. Farms are in rural communities but they have least access to it. Step #4: Give farmers contracts for funding, example farmers in Davie, getting them contracts with the USDA Step #5: What every day consumers can do: Go to city council meetings, make elected officials more involved, grow our own food. Unless city governments can see financial impact, they won’t be as open to being involved to give communities more power over land. Ex. Instead of X would make people healthier, X would lower how much money is spent on X people negatively impacted by X. Step #6: Educate people and give them resources to tools needed. 40% of college students are food insecure, so that students have access to SNAP. Step #7: Consumers can buy local. On an individual level, you can educate people about it. Step #8: Involve people in rural communities and farmers in solutions to food insecurity, don’t exclude them from the conversations. Lire moins

The environmental impacts of Food: How can we eat more responsibly? Actions urgently needed: Developing and providing access to affordable healthier food options that are also sustainably grown: 1) using Patch concept - community gardens in urban areas of low social-economic status; 2) engaging community in garden developments; 3) providing subsidies for fresh local seasonal produce; 4) partnering up with local grocers, supermarkets and farmer’s market to provide access to foods, funding for gardens, employment and volunteer opportunities; 5) promoting Meatless Monday campaigns along with ot... Lire la suiteher plant-based options for healthier humans and the Planet; 6) urging school districts to implement sustainable nutrition education components, engaging community on ongoing events and educational sessions on sustainable nutrition. Lire moins

Partnership: Game-changing Solutions for transforming Food Systems Actions urgently needed: 1) Increase coordination efforts – necessary to partner and scale up the action 2) Increase clarity and transparency by formalizing partnerships - a way to help simplify some of the challenges that take place when building collective impact efforts. 3) Avoid duplication of work: let others know what each organization is good at, and let other actors do their part 4) Create policies - needed to have an official way of coordinating actions with clarity 5) Staffing/Capacity of partners is an issue: incre... Lire la suitease collaboration to make up for the capacity issues, to leverage staff time, expertise, diversify programming, etc. Increase multi sector partnerships and collective impact collaborations 6) Create a universal database for food system non-profit database to share data 7) Have more “shared used kitchens”, increase number of food hubs Key stakeholders: • Foodsavers.Org • Feeding South Florida • Humana educational seminars on healthy eating on a budget • Publix is socially responsible and can educate and help out through their grants. • The organization should be responsible for advocating towards education… collaboration with businesses to support these businesses • Dietetic association (Miami and Florida) those members would offer their time: anything about education. Lire moins

Food Waste and Recovery: What supply chain solutions can help ensure responsible use of resources, reduce and recover food waste from farmers to consumers? Actions urgently needed: 1) Expand composting efforts 2) Start with an education campaign at a state level and simultaneously develop a municipal based pick up and drop off system for composting facilities 3) Have municipalities to first provide services to primary education centers, then restaurants, and then households 4) Have municipal governments also incentivize local farmers to create their own composting facility on site to process l... Lire la suiteocal food scraps 5) Have local farmers diversify their production based on local demand. 6) Food access needs to be improved to avoid surplus food going to waste by: • Providing research grants to identify food deserts in South Florida • Advocating for zoning policy to allow mixed use • Incentivizing the creation of small local fresh produce only stores within walking distance of food deserts • Subsidizing the purchase of storage equipment for those stores • Accepting food stamps at those stores • Eliminating strict quality standards based on the weight, size and appearance of the fresh produce (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and dairy) sold • Ensuring the transportation/delivery of locally produced items to above mentioned stores. Key stakeholders: • Local government can carry out public awareness campaigns at the consumer level to encourage a movement away from impulsive to rational consumption patterns. Working with employers to provide free days for workers to attend health/wellness classes (provided by organizations such as; the UF IFAS extension program or local nutritionist) on a healthy diet, purchase planning, making a grocery list (based on daily needs), creating an inventory of supplies, and buying less. • NGO’s can continue their efforts to divert food from landfills by delivering it to food banks and sending scrap for animal feed or to Industrial Use sites (to recover energy). NGO’s can also press for legislation that encourages markets to sell ‘sub-standard’ products that are still safe and of good taste and nutritional value. • Municipal governments can help by developing linkages between farmers and local restaurants, food banks and supermarkets so they better understand local demand and diversify their production accordingly. • Restaurants, the amount of available food per person in restaurants has increased. In addition to providing restaurants with free food waste audits, NGO’s can continue to help them divert their food from the landfill while municipalities set up the composting system. We suggest research be conducted to find ways to address the bi-product waste/packaging created by restaurants providing takeout options for clients. Ways in which progress could be assessed: • Post-secondary education institutions and NGOs can continue to carry out research designed to identify food waste along the value chain of locally produced food. • Universities and NGOs can provide free waste audits at the retail and restaurant level and see how things have improved. Lire moins

Climate Resilience: How to strengthen the food system in the face of a climate emergency? Actions urgently needed: 1) Better understand what is happening in the area by creating workgroups and gaining insights into the “lay of the land”: understand the threats, what is already being impacted and how. 2) Implement a plan so that efforts are not duplicated. Other efforts/actions include: 1) Increase use of urban gardens (households, commercial rooftops, public lands) 2) Increase use of household food stocks for emergencies such as hurricanes (stockpiling) 3) Create intra-neighborhood network... Lire la suites to aid most at risk households especially the elderly and shut-ins 4) Make food systems flexible and adaptable as climate threats change 5) Build desalinization plants 6) Increase use of more resilient crops, phase out less resilient crops, for better use of agricultural land 7) Facilitate households growing their own landscaping plants so that landscaping companies can convert their land to agricultural crops 8) Create a public community garden at every public school 9) Counter the effect of the increase in poor diet health problems among people 10) Transition to a more sustainable, less wasteful food system - government/agencies working with industries/corporations 11) Provide equity in food security across race, ethnicity and income Key stakeholders: Actions will require the participation of food organizations, local elected officials, government, farmers, distributors and businesses. Ways in which progress could be assessed: • Determine the impact felt in marginalized communities, which are/will be the most affected; determine number of food insecure people • Monitor food costs, as they will go up if actions are not successful • Access to fresh food will be more difficult if action is not successful • Monitor malnutrition, as it could be a problem. How to ensure nutrients make it to the communities? • House insecurity, homelessness, food insecurity…all interconnected – monitor these to determine success. • If not successful there will be an increase in poor diet health problems among people • There must be equity in food security across race, ethnicity and income • There will be a rise/fall in proportion of fresh produce within diets • Determine the agricultural productivity per acre on vital commodities/produce • Ability to adapt to sudden or unexpected crises • Measurement of unsold food recovered or rescued and diverted to food banks, pantries, homeless shelters, etc. Lire moins

Food Security: SE Florida’s Agriculture in the Coming Decades Actions urgently needed: 1) Short-term actions: • Increase support for/dependence on local farmers, especially by having grocery stores and restaurants get more produce from South Florida farmers. That would reduce emissions and lower the number of imports, which undercut local growers and drive down the wages of local agricultural employees. • For any imports that remain, move away from using wood pallets or increase regulation to ensure they’re treated and cannot introduce new pests. • Pass heat standards at the federal ... Lire la suitelevel (H.R.3668 - Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act) and at the state level so there’s a legal mandate for agricultural employers to provide their workers with rest breaks, water access and restrooms. • Maintain the urban development boundary where it is. • Invest in technology and pilot projects for sustainable agriculture in South Florida, especially in partnership with local universities. 2) Longer-term actions: • Work on increasing farms’ energy efficiency and on converting the power grid to renewable sources so that energy used on farms does not contribute to climate change. • Convert septic tanks to sewer systems to avoid nutrient leakage into waterways. Key stakeholders: Most participants would be willing to advocate for most of the issues above if there were clear channels through which they could do so. Some organizations already lobby on the issues of heat protection and the urban development boundary. Priority issues that would benefit from a more organized advocacy effort include buying local produce (especially getting supermarkets and restaurants to buy local) and converting the energy grid. These issues align with many of the advocacy efforts of local climate groups, so perhaps there’s a way to jointly mobilize with them. Many of these organizations would be willing to partner with one another or with universities on pilot projects for sustainable agriculture, if the opportunities and funding were made available to them. Ways in which progress could be assessed: How would success look like? Examples: If the Urban Development Boundary stays where it is. If Congress and Florida’s Legislature each pass laws mandating heat risk protections for ag workers. If there’s increased regulation/reduced use of untreated wooden pallets leading to a decline in the emergence of new pests and diseases. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the economy’s reliance on local farmers are harder to quantify. Lire moins

Resilience after COVID-19: How to build back better food systems Actions urgently needed 1) Recognize the lack of preparedness for major shifts and the need for restructuring the balance between international supply and local. 2) Carefully manage food supply balance to avoid drastic changes in cost of food 3) Support local farmers and local growers by prioritizing the purchase through educational campaigns 4) Attract young people to farmers, cultivating and incentivizing youth to work in the rural environment 5) Have big supermarket chains choose part of their supply from local farmers (having... Lire la suite a % of their total purchases coming from local producers) 6) Create government incentives through tax incentives for supermarkets prioritizing local farmers products 7) Update US food regulations (based in the 19th Century) 8) Amplify the Fresh From Florida database outreach, making it more visible and distributed. 9) Advocate for the changes needed, demanding from local official's tax incentives needed to prioritize local farmer's purchase 10) Incorporate a system thinking approach to food systems 11) Implement and test the solutions such as programs related to Food Readiness and encourage the creation of Food Incubators Key stakeholders • Supermarkets • Local farmers • Government • Public-Private partnerships (Corporations) • Young people • Schools (and the taught content related to planting, food crops, rural) • Doctors Ways in which progress could be assessed: What we have experienced during the Covid-19 Pandemic showed our inadequacy to deal with our global nutrition. The success of our actions will be measured by the level of urgency in acting before the next global challenge arrives - the Climate Crisis. The group recognized the many lessons learned from the Pandemic and the proposed solutions should be put in speed action by our governments now. Lire moins

Food access: How do we ensure sustainable, affordable and nutritious food for all communities Actions urgently needed: 1) Policies: Work with municipalities to work on policies, which can have a higher level of change. Ex: Local food policies that allow for growing food at home and having more urban food agriculture more possible. 2) Urban ag: • Implement community gardens on a certain piece of land and focus on government policy to ensure that the soil is safe and not contaminated to streamlined the process of testing and analysis. • Increase the number of on-site farms at community facil... Lire la suiteities such as hospitals, schools, etc. (Grow to Heal at Baptist Health) • Increase the number of community gardens and promote the 365-day growing season in Miami • Hydroponic growing and urban growing to preserve farm land and not give that land up. 3) Access and Utilization: • Make farmer’s markets more readily accessible and not considered an event- change the mindset of the community and politicians will show that there is a need for more access. • Increase the number of programs that could be culturally sensitive, ex: Little Haiti could integrate local chefs in the community to create recipes and have fun events to show how they make recipes, give them out, and show how they can eliminate food waste when cooking. Ex: how to cut a pepper to avoid as much waste as possible, and use as much of the food as possible 4) Food waste: Increase composting efforts - It is hard to find places to compost which is a problem in itself, along with the fact that not enough food is composted, but thrown out instead 5) Partnerships: Increase partnerships are needed in general in the tourism industry- opportunity to marry caters, hotels etc. with a community- overflow of foods from events can get donated and there can be incentives for caters and hotels in a form of taxes etc. to reduce waste 6) Priorities: Pin point better the places within neighborhoods that are in most need (access what the community needs and not what we feel the community wants- it’s not about us, it’s about the community) Key stakeholders: • Organizations such as hospitals, (Ex: Baptist Health) as well as schools will change the mind-set of what a farmer’s market is. It needs to be more accessible and more common, and changes in culture can make this happen. Farmers markets are typically on weekends and during limited hours, but this should be more accessible to people. Farmer’s markets are also typically located in affluent areas, and that poses a barrier- Meet people where they are, and bring the market to these areas to eliminate barriers of access. • Refrigerators in Liberty City- allowing the community to come in and take what they wish- donator can put into the refrigerator what they wish. This is innovative and will become more larger and mainstream. Challenges are the health and safety and monitoring of what gets put into these refrigerators. Having good partnerships with donators so that the right foods are going into the refrigerator is imperative Ways in which progress could be assessed: 1) Short-term: examples of increasing access to farmer markets: • Observing the mind-set of people on how they feel about community gardens by talking to people or engaging in focus groups in various communities. This will provide important insight into whether or not these actions are being successful or not. • Counting the frequency and hours in which farmers markets are available is a reat way to quantitatively measure success. This is more immediate measure. 2) Long-term: • General health of population- less access to nutrition food = long term health problems. If over the course of many years, the health of a community improves significantly, we can assess the effect that increased focus on food access has on a group. Lire moins

The following solutions have been identified: Education – Education is critical to engage the SE FL community on improving food systems. Includes education of consumers about the environmental impact of diets and shelf-life, young people about careers in Food System and farmers about sustainability. Transparency - is needed and can be made possible e.g. through vizualizations of food system map, audits and research. Communication - we need to communicate to counter misinformation and educate. Governance – stronger leadership is needed. Includes, for example, the creation of a board to over... Lire la suitesee food system work. Partnerships/stakeholder collaboration – includes the establishment of partnerships e.g. with churches, and collaborations between farmers. Measurement - we can only manage what we can measure. Needs to use indicators that are holistic and impact-focused (e.g. measure health outcomes). Implementation – can be fostered by bringing in community members of trust. Below are the main findings for each action track. AT1: Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all We need more transparency on distribution of access points: we should count them, and overlay them with health outcomes. Solutions: identify food deserts, increase the number of community gardens and on-site farms at community facilities, bring food market to the people, increase policy support of urban agriculture. AT2 : Shift to sustainable consumption patterns We need to engage and educate populations about the health and environmental impact of food and food waste: engage communities in garden developments, create partnerships with local grocers, supermarkets and farmers’ markets to provide access to healthy food and funding for gardens, promote plant-based options (e.g. Meatless Monday), implement sustainable nutrition education components in schools, expand composting efforts through a municipal-based pick-up and drop-off system for composting facilities. Local farmers need to 1) diversify their production based on local demand, and 2) create their own composting facility on site to process local food scraps. AT3 : Boost nature-positive production We need to increase support for local farmers and increase regulation: ensure remaining imports are treated and cannot introduce new pests, pass heat standards at the federal level (H.R.3668 - Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act) and at the state level so there’s a legal mandate for agricultural employers to provide their workers with rest breaks, water access and restrooms. We need to increase farms’ energy efficiency: invest in technology and pilot projects for sustainable agriculture, convert the power grid to renewable sources, convert septic tanks to sewer systems to avoid nutrient leakage into waterways. AT4 : Advance equitable livelihoods We need to integrate youth into the agri-food system by educating them using technology (social media, apps), having young people talk to other young people to engage them, increase communication on career opportunities in food systems, create a community education component on food systems and community growing in higher education. It is critical to give control back to rural communities and involve them in decision-making, make SNAP available to ex-felons in state of Florida, give farmers contracts for funding, insist on the positive financial impact of transforming food systems to get elected officials involved in giving communities more power over land. AT5: Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress To increase resilience, we need to: increase use of urban gardens (households, commercial rooftops, public lands) and of household food stocks for emergencies such as hurricanes (stockpiling), develop intra-neighborhood networks to aid most at risk households, use more resilient crops, facilitate households growing their own landscaping plants so that landscaping companies can convert their land to agricultural crops. To build back better from COVID-19, we must prioritize local farmers purchase (supermarkets must have a % of their total purchases coming from local producers, government tax incentives for supermarkets doing so), implement and test the solutions such as programs related to Food Readiness and encouraging the creation of Food Incubators. Lire moins

The focus of our Dialogue was: Envisioning a Sustainable and Resilient Food System in SE Florida by 2030. Ten Discussion Groups were organized: 1) Food access: How do we ensure sustainable, affordable and nutritious food for all communities (Action tracks #1, #2 and #4) 2) Resilience after COVID-19: How to build back better food systems (Action track #5) 3) Food Security: SE Florida’s Agriculture in the Coming Decades (Action track #4) 4) Climate Resilience: How to strengthen the food system in the face of a climate emergency (Action track #5) 5) Food Waste and Recovery: What supply chain so... Lire la suitelutions can help ensure responsible use of resources, reduce and recover food waste from farmers to consumers (Action track #3) 6) Partnership: Game-changing Solutions for transforming Food Systems (Action tracks #1, #3, #4 and #5) 7) The environmental impacts of Food: How can we eat more responsibly? (Action track #2) 8) Making food systems more inclusive: The role of minorities in food systems (Action track #4) 9) Youth Power: How young people can help shift help shift food systems towards increased sustainability and climate resilience (Action tracks #1, #3, #4, and #5) 10) Community building: How to foster collaboration between food system stakeholders to focus and strengthen collective action (Action tracks #1, 2, 3, 4 and #5) Lire moins