the Northeast Food Security Roundtable is busy these days, with some great events coming up.  Click here for more on the project, and on the upcoming  Community Food Sovereignty Benefit Concert, “The Food Justice Revival!” on August 28th.

Below, is a description of the Food Security Roundtable's Urban/Rural Exchange and a request to farmers and distributors and farmer's organizations to donate to the Urban/Rural Exchange food shipment in late September, and to help reach the farmers in their areas who would like to be part of this project.
The URE Food Shipment - September, 2009
The city is a place where there is a lot less access to fresh, affordable food, not to mention land to grow it on, but it’s where the largest concentrations of people live. The city people who are organizing around food justice and other community projects likely have a lot to add to food security strategy and dialog that's going on in rural areas, and vice verse. We need to start being part of the same conversations so we can be sure to build on each others' efforts and share our limited resources efficiently. Our intention in making this shipment is to introduce ourselves to grassroots urban organizations, like bringing a pie over to the neighbors to break the ice. Food is a labor of love that takes a lot of effort to grow and is something everyone needs. This delivery will demonstrate the tangible benefits of access to land and working together as a larger community. It's also a starting point for more farmers and community members to engage in the work for food security.
If you are a farmer, or distributor, or have connections to either, we are asking you to put some food on the truck to help us get this ball rolling. You can do that by filling out the sign-up sheet at the bottom of the page, or by calling us and we'll get your information over the phone. We are starting to figure out what's going on the trucks now so we can estimate how many organizations we can reach out to. One urban organizations in the South Bronx, Mothers on the Move - www.mothersonthemove.org, has agreed to be our first partner and will be receiving part of the food shipment this harvest season. If we can see that our volume is more than enough to meet that commitment we can start to include some of the other urban farming and food justice organizations we've been in touch with. The more people involved on both ends of this project the more we can help farmers and activists from different backgrounds to organize together for community control of the food system and start building relationships and projects across cultural, political, and geographic lines. We are talking with food justice organizers and grassroots community groups about the politics and logistics of building these relationships and this project based on mutual support and respect.
We hope that some members of these rural and urban communities will be interested in spending more time with each other - visiting the farms, visiting the city, and building this network together so we can start understanding who needs what, who's got what, and which projects we are each interested in being involved with to build a collaborative movement for individual food security and community influence in the systems of food production and distribution. The next steps in the Urban/Rural Exchange will be about helping organize these visits and connecting folks to collaborate on projects that fit their mutual interests.
Background - The Food Security Roundtable and Mothers on the Move
The Food Security Roundtable
A number of Farmers and Community / Food Activists from around New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York are beginning to build relationships oriented toward reworking how food is produced and distributed in our communities. We have been calling this process the Food Security Roundtable. The message is simple: Our communities need to take back control of the decisions and processes that affect what gets grown and eaten and who gets to grow it and eat it to build a more just and stable food system than the one we have now.
Farmers and community activists have been holding Food Security Roundtables in Southern Vermont, in the Hudson Valley of New York, and have had smaller meetings in New York City. At our initial meeting in Vermont in February of this year we decided, among other things, to organize a food shipment in the fall to community-led organizations In New York City. So we got in touch with...
Mothers On the Move has been organizing in the the South Bronx for fourteen years. They are working to change policy and empower their community by organizing their campaigns around Housing Justice, Environmental Justice, Youth Organizing, and Education Justice. We hope that through establishing cooperative projects with groups like MOM we can be directly supporting the work they do while being exposed to techniques and strategies for organizing for change and making all of our voices heard on the issues that affect our lives. We are trying reach as many farmers and distributors as possible, both to invite them into this network and to increase the volume of the food shipment so we can include more urban farmers and other projects in New York City, increasing the benefits to the network, the farmers, and the receiving organizations.
Please contact us if you are interested in being involved or supporting this project.
Amazing Planet Farm and Justice Center
218 Depot Rd Williamsville, VT 05362
Phone: 917.922.5430
Email: [email protected]

Find this document online -
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgjn7phh_16f4vtz5p3
For a printable version of the Farmer/Producer Sign-up form, visit:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgjn7phh_13gfd8vfh4