By Adriane Dellorco November 22, 2001 (OSAP Newsletter article)

On November 9 and 10 the Farms to Colleges Conference was held in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center to promote local foods systems development in northeast Ohio. Brad Masi and I had helped to organize the conference all semester, with the financial support of the Community Food Security Coalition and Oberlin College Reslife. Over sixty people attended the conference from various walks of life: farmers, food service employees, professors and students and other citizens from all over Ohio. One of the greatest successes of the conference was simply having such different kinds of people interacting and understanding each other better.

The conference included two meals featuring local produce that allowed people to interact on a more personal level and celebrate the fine fare of locally grown food. Members from Oberlin Student Co-operative Association (OSCA) cooked one meal and Campus Dining Services (CDS) cooked the other meal (CDS surprisingly cooked a great meal, as did OSCA). Friday’s events included a Clark farm tour, a student forum to discuss the local food projects occurring at Oberlin College, and a talk by Brad on the importance of creating a strong local foods economy. More people arrived on Saturday morning to listen to our keynote speaker: a professor who had worked on bringing local foods to Iowa University, a retirement home, and a restaurant. This was followed by a diverse panel that included myself, two people who worked with organizations that promoted local agriculture, and a food service manager from Ohio University that had worked to bring local foods to his university. There was an outpouring of questions from the audience that seemed to invoke a lot of conversation and questioning about the state of agriculture today. Later on, there were workshops that included Integrating Food Systems into the Curricula, Liability and Other Institutional Issues, and Direct Marketing to Institutional Markets. Finally, the people who stayed until the end of the conference came together to discuss what they had thought about the conference and brainstorm ways to continue to work for ways to improve the local foods economy. Most people were very jazzed about the conference and learned a lot. Many people suggested that such a conference become a yearly event in hopes that the momentum and inspiration from the conference did not stop there. Brad wrote down a list of people who were interested in organizing future events and consortiums.

After the conference, I talked with Michele Gross (the head of Dining in Reslife at Oberlin College) and Jack Cahill (the head of CDS) about their experiences at the conference. Michele said that she learned a great deal and Jack mentioned that he’s received numerous calls already from eager farmers ready to make a deal. Bit by bit, I think that we can slowly expand the selection of local foods in CDS and put a lot of money in the hands of local farmers.

The highlight of the conference for me was seeing so many people from different walks of life coming together to pursue a higher goal. Many personal and business connections were made at the conference that I hope will continue into the future and set the foundation for a stronger local foods economy.