FORT KENT, Maine — Stakeholders from various food services and institutional administrators from local schools and hospitals were recently joined by other interested members of the business community to meet with organizers from Farm to Institution New England (FINE).
The first roundtable event, to begin the dialogue around access of locally grown foods, was held on March 9, 2016, hosted by the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
Riley Neugebauer, Coordinator for Farm and Sea to Campus Network and FINE, provided an overview of the Maine-based program, which works with stakeholders from across the campus food system in order to increase the purchasing and use of local foods. Neugebauer spoke about how these goals are achieved and how the same principles may be successfully applied to northern Aroostook County, not only in schools, but also in healthcare institutions.
She shared a variety of methods used by FINE, which includes: partnerships with others; communicating best practices and lessons learned: network-building, organizing gatherings of stakeholders, assisting with evaluation and measurement of local food efforts, and providing technical assistance.
Neugebauer indicated that schools in the FINE network commit to serve locally produced foods in their cafeterias, they teach kids about nutrition and healthy eating, and in some areas have created school gardens. Hospitals, nursing homes, retirement communities and other healthcare facilities across New England are also serving local and regionally grown food, hosting farmers markets, prescribing their patients farm-fresh food, growing on-site gardens and promoting healthy eating.
The primary objective for the focus group was to facilitate the exploration of and promotion of local food resources. FINE advocates and representatives from institutions in northern Aroostook County learned about strategies implemented by local partners to access locally grown and raised foods as well as to identify collaborative opportunities to help promote farm to institution at the local level. People from around the St. John Valley and Northern Aroostook County engaged in small group discussions and information sharing about lessons learned and successes in purchasing local foods and improved access to fresh food.
Participants left with tools and resources from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service, the USDA Farm Service Agency, Healthcare Without Harm, the Market Street Co-op and the Power of Prevention. With the information gleaned from the first roundtable discussion, local stakeholders have begun to identify infrastructure needs and gaps which will need to be addressed in order to create a farm to institution network model in Northern Aroostook County.
To learn more, contact Joanne Fortin at 207-834-1353.
