I have seen the future of how we can transition to a healthy local food system and it is in Vermont. Picture this: 180 people from all parts of the state’s food system, in one room, reflecting on how they have worked together over the past year in a coordinated way towards goals of doubling local food production, increasing jobs, and improving access to healthy food for all Vermonters. Picture a network that connects and provides the structure for collaboration among farmers, food processors, food businesses, retailers, consumers, policy makers, state agencies, university researchers, technical assistance providers, educators, non-profits, and funders. Picture these conversations informed by data and ideas gathered through in-depth research and stakeholder input of over 1,200 people in the state, summarized in a close to 1,000 page strategic plan.

This is what is underway in Vermont with the Vermont Farm to Plate Network, a ground breaking “collective impact” initiative. The sense of accomplishment and future potential was palpable, as the Network gathered last week. One year ago, Curtis Ogden of IISC and I had the honor to work with the VT Sustainable Jobs Fund as it launched the Vermont Farm to Plate Network as a way to implement the VT Farm to Plate Strategic Plan. The intention is to create “a mutually reinforcing plan of action that allows differentiated activity while still being coordinated and effective.” (This blog from last year provides more details on the strategic plan and network launch in 2011.) Last week, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to co-facilitate the second annual Network gathering in Fairlee, VT and see first-hand how the Network was working and what promising developments had emerged.

The Network is a model of how to use a systems change focus to organize large-scale collaboration. Six Working Groups formed that each focus on a leverage point for change: Farmland Access & Stewardship, Dairy Development, Aggregation & Distribution, Technical Assistance, Education & Workforce Development, and Consumer Education & Marketing. Each Working Group met four times over the last year and brought together a diverse range of participants from across the food system.

These meetings weave new networks of connection and break down “siloes;” in many cases the participants had never all sat in the same room. For example, the Education & Workforce Development Work Group includes preK-12 educators, Farm to School programs, colleges and adult learning programs, and technical and professional development. Their conversations mapped out a continuum of education developed a time line/continuum for food and education, from pre-school to professional training, which highlighted successes and gaps in the system.

The theme of connecting the parts and maintaining a systems perspective is reinforced in other aspects of the network’s structure. Cross-Cutting Teams address issues that cut across all the Work Groups, for example Food Access, Policy, Research and Financing. The Financing Team has mapped out the range of financing options for farmers, food-based business entrepreneurs, and other sources of funding to support the initiative. A Steering Committee coordinates work and finds connections among the Working Groups and Teams, which includes the Chairs of each Working Group as well as representatives of state Secretaries of Agriculture and Commerce and a representative of the VT Food Funders Network. The VT Sustainable Jobs Fund serves as the network coordinator.

The Network is designed to be adaptive and support innovation. The Steering Committee has an Innovation Fund where it gives grants of $5,000 – $10,000 to support the needs identified by the Working Groups. Many of the Working Groups realized they needed additional research and/or mapping to better understand the systems they were focused on changing. The innovation grants can support that work. An example is the Aggregation and Distribution group wants to assess the demand for local food at locally owned/independent retail outlets in the state and better understand their interest and volume and packaging needs. This work will coordinate with the Consumer Education/Marketing group, which will develop a consumer education/awareness and marketing campaign to encourage more Vermonters to shop at independent, locally owned grocers and for these grocers to increase their sourcing of locally produced food.

As I listened to the Working Groups report on their progress and focus areas and heard snapshots of new policies and initiatives from across the food system, I could sense the innovative potential of this network structure. Vermont is creating a dense web of collaboration to enable over 160 organizations to self-organize and invent new ways of contributing to the larger goal of improving the food system and benefitting their organizations. The Network is enabling parts of the food system to link together in synergistic ways, with inspiring stories of projects that generate value on multiple dimensions. For example, the VT Food Bank coordinates hundreds of volunteers who conduct gleaning, i.e., harvesting the food left in farmers fields that would otherwise go to waste. This food is provided to the Community Kitchen Academy, a training program for unemployed people to teach them culinary arts. As the students learn and practice, they prepare the food into ready-made meals that are distributed through food banks to needy families.

And this is just the beginning. The Network is about to launch the Vermont Food Atlas, an on-line collaboration platform for the Network, which will also offer access to the detailed Strategic Plan and a mapping function to find all food-related organizations. Plus, representatives working on food systems in each of the other five New England states attended to learn first-hand about Vermont’s model and they shared about work underway in their states.