A farmer contemplates, "Who will be the next person to farm these fields? How will they deal with increasing land prices and other expenses to keep the farm in business?" Not thirty miles away in Columbus, a single mother with two children sits at the kitchen table and wonders, "How can I stretch my paycheck even further to buy food? How can I keep my 15-year-old off the streets and gainfully employed?"

These challenges confront low-income rural and urban households. Youth, often considered a rural community’s greatest resource, are exported. Low-income families in Columbus and of nearby farm communities are among the working poor, are underserved, and lack sufficient opportunities to get ahead. But the farmer and the single mother have another poignant link-the food they eat. This common bond can be built upon to create opportunities and to help build sustainable communities.

In order to help forge these opportunities and common bonds, a coalition of Ohio Citizen Action, Innovative Farmers of Ohio, Stratford Ecological Center, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, and Denison University, in partnership with Head Start, Perry Clutts of Pleasantview Farm, Franklin Park Conservatory, and The Ohio State University, recently received a USDA Community Food Security grant for $200,000 to be used for the first phase of The Greater Columbus Foodshed* Project. In this phase, the Project will focus on working with farmers and Head Start families.

Over the next 2-1/2 years, 27 community gardens will be established with Head Start families. The grant will enable the coalition and its partners to develop nutrition materials and cooking classes and outfit a local Food Wagon to provide educational programs and locally grown food for inner city neighborhoods. The Food Wagon will also transport urban youth to local farms. Designing and implementing a Beginning Farmer Program that teaches interested inner city youth about urban and rural farming opportunities is another part of the project. The coalition will be establishing a local Foodshed Council for the greater Columbus region.

The work to be covered in this grant is one piece in a complex and beautiful "foodshed quilt." Other pieces will include such things as a Buy Local Foods; establishing an incubator kitchen for developing products from local foods; a local foods festival; and workshops on entrepreneurial opportunities related to a healthy and vibrant local foods system.

The Foodshed Council will provide a meeting place where community representatives can come together to survey the assets of our food system. This will include everything related to food production, distribution, consumption, and waste management. The Council will develop local programs and policies that build on these assets. A diverse membership with representatives from both urban and rural communities will be required to make the Foodshed Council a success.

How You Can Get Involved

We are seeking people such as organic and conventional farmers, local elected officials, economic development experts, corporate leaders, community garden coordinators, nutritionists, parents, and any other interested contributors to join the Foodshed Council.

If you are interested in the Foodshed Council or any other project covered by the USDA grant, please call Noreen Warnock, Environmental Campaigns Director, Ohio Citizen Action, at (614) 447-2868 or nwarnock@ohiocitizen.org. Ohio Citizen Action’s website is www.ohiocitizen.org.

Laura Ann Bergman is the Director of Innovative Farmers of Ohio. Shannon Kishel was on the staff of Stratford Ecological Center when she contributed to the development of the USDA grant.

* What is a foodshed?

The term “foodshed”, borrowed from the concept of a watershed, was coined as early as 1929 to describe the flow of food from the area where it is grown into the place where it is consumed. Recently, the term has been revived as a way of thinking about local, sustainable food systems. (Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project)

Despite the lack of food resources in the Greater Columbus Foodshed region's urban core, many farmers in the surrounding counties are unable to find adequate markets for their products. In fact, Ohio's farmers are a dying breed. While operation costs are on the rise, many farmers receive the same prices today for staple commodity crops that their grandfathers did. Each year Ohio loses over 1,000 farmers who decide that farming can no longer provide a living wage or cover the debts from the previous year's operating loans. The average age of Ohio farmers continues to rise, as fewer rural youth see opportunities in agriculture.