Outside the growing season, RVGA organizes “Farmer-to-Farmer” events that enable local food producers to share the tactics that work best for them in terms of diversifying their income streams, like agritourism concepts or niche marketing. A series of symposia last winter brought experts from a variety of public agencies and consortia to local venues where farmers could gather to hear about the latest trends and best practices in agriculture. “There are many challenges facing small farmers in terms of aggregating and distributing food,” DeWan notes, and RVGA supplies a structure through which the stakeholders in the local “foodshed” can figure out how to create economies of scale that make them more nimble, efficient, adaptable and able to survive major setbacks like a late frost or a flood.
A key component in that complex picture is cultivating relationships between groups of small farmers and large institutional buyers, like the aforementioned resorts, hospitals and schools. As a result, “Our Farm-to-School program has risen to the top in importance” since she came on board at RVGA a year-and-a-half ago, says DeWan, and the Rondout Valley School District has become a crucial partner. Parents in recent years have become much more activist about demanding healthier choices for their kids on cafeteria menus; and more and more school food services directors want to accommodate them, but find themselves stymied by shrinking budgets and dwindling federal and state support. The margin between what it costs to feed a child in school and what funds are available is just too narrow, in most places, to transcend bulk buying and carbohydrate-heavy menus. “To buy from local farmers, both for price and quantity, is really hard for schools,” she reports.
Working closely with the school district, in February RVGA organized an event that may point the way toward healthier school lunches in the future: a School Food Summit featuring panel discussions with chefs, farmers and food service directors from school districts that have found innovative approaches that work. There was also a local food fair with more than 30 booths, as well as performances of “songs of farms and food.” Turnout was high, and the event “raised awareness and enthusiasm,” says DeWan.
But what sounds like the coolest part of the Food Summit was Kitchen Camp, a hands-on training that brought local food service workers into the Rondout Valley High School cafeteria to see what they could make to feed a large crowd with an assortment of locally grown foods. Considering the current popularity of reality TV shows in which celebrity chefs compete to make the tastiest dish from a counterintuitive ingredients list, such an exercise might be just the thing to encourage cafeteria staffs to unleash their creativity instead of thawing out yet another case of chicken nuggets.
The Rondout Valley School District is currently pursuing a grant to install salad bars in the schools, according to DeWan: “The schools are eager to educate students and to promote wellness.” But getting kids to opt for a salad is, of course, another matter entirely. The key, as DeWan sees it, is for students to be personally engaged in making changes. “This is really important, because they’re the future decisionmakers…I want to see students on these committees, coming up with menus…to be empowered to make better choices and to be advocates with their friends and families.”
Over the summer and into the fall, RVGA will hold a series of community outreach events, aimed at “advocating, educating and celebrating,” in DeWan’s words. Novi is organizing a rerun of last summer’s very successful fundraising event, the Farm-to-Feast Dinner. And on Sept. 28, the Epworth Center in High Falls will host RVGA’s Famous Barn Dance and Tenth Anniversary Celebration, where hundreds of members and supporters turn out to enjoy the fruits of the harvest and then dance off all those calories.
Meanwhile, RVGA is always seeking support from the community, whether it be in the form of financial donations or personal involvement. “We’d love to have our own vehicle,” says DeWan. “We welcome volunteers, people with ideas and energy. We want to do whatever we can to keep farming strong in the Rondout Valley — farmers, community members, schools, businesses, local government, all working together…. I’m optimistic that RVGA will have another ten years of making a difference in the community.”
