Guest Voice: Community builds our food

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association sponsors many programs statewide

By Ben Filippo
Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is a regional non-profit serving the many wonderful sustainable producers of food and land stewards in the Carolinas. This community – our community –  is vital to creating a new and robust food system that includes, rather than excludes, the community itself.

In order to shift the paradigm of food systems in the United States, and create a new one, as it were, organizations like CFSA and Catawba River District must form a broader community amongst each other and among their own constituency. Everyone eats, and so everyone, from all sectors of the community, deserves and needs a place at the table, or the drawing board when we attempt to create better food access, sovereignty, and a strong local economic system within these communities.

At CFSA, we are working first at a micro-level within our own staff and supporter community to build this new food system. We are working to:

• Create Food Systems projects and businesses (like Eastern Carolina Organics and Carolina Ground, which is working to build a viable and vibrant organic bread-grain economy in North Carolina).
• Provide the technical expertise of our Farm Services team through Farmer Training & Continued Education.
• Harness the outreach capacity of our Education Team  through events such as the 28th annual Sustainable Agricultural Conference, Nov. 15-17 in Durham and support of regional Farm Tours.
• Tap the mobilization abilities of our Policy Team (Barnstorm Tour, Funds to Farms). 

We then work with partner organizations like Catawba River District in a collective effort to create more systemic, organized and effective change.

No part of North Carolina is too distant or disconnected from this effort. All should be part of the collective process to work towards a food system in the Carolinas that feeds good, healthy, local foods to all people involved along the way.

About Carolina Farm Stewardship Association

CFSA supports farming that is good for consumers, good for our farmers and farmworkers, and good for the land.
Visit carolinafarmstewards.org and facebook.com/carolinafarmstewards to learn much more about these activities. The website includes a search engine for finding local food providers. You also can sign up for the group’s newsletter.

– Ben Filippo is food systems coordinator for Carolina Farm Stewardship Organization