Progress report for WRGR22-001
Project Information
AERO's Montana Food Economy Initiative (MFEI) strengthens the network of Montana values-based community food systems to ensure producer sustainability and resilience, and support community economic, environmental, social, and human health. MFEI emphasizes coordinating cross-sector engagement across all parts of the food system (producer, processor, distributor, consumer, recovery) to support critical producer sustainability (see MFEI Food System Graphic).
Regional assessment data from MFEI's 2017 project funded by WSARE's Producer+Professional grant identified gaps between producers and other local food system stakeholders, risking diminished producer viability. MFEI's 2020 project, funded by WSARE's "Research to Grassroots" grant, sought to fill those gaps by developing a producer-led Advisory Board to help design and mentor implementation of discrete, shovel-ready producer-led projects that enhanced on-farm resilience and cross-sector engagement, and also built producers’ collaborative leadership skills for implementing community projects. Participant surveys from this effort identified a strong interest in continued cross-sector collaborations, particularly to assess, develop, and implement strategies for maturing developing community food systems.
The 2022 MFEI project offers Community Food System Assessments (CFSAs) to Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena communities. The assessment focuses on coalition-building, mapping community assets, crafting a logic model, and developing metrics. The CFSA, facilitated by a trained assessor, supports the community in attracting a network of stakeholders across sectors (health, education, food, business) working with producers to implement strategies that strengthen community food system priorities. The 2020 MFEI producer-led Advisory Board cohort will help with assessment design, ensuring it reflects Montana’s landscape, and will participate as sector experts during the assessment. AERO anticipates the coalition networks will coordinate and implement at least one short-term, producer-led project using the MFEI 2020 project model. A Local Food Coordinator residing in each community, will help gather and build engagement among stakeholders throughout the CFSA and project implementation.
As stated above, AERO’s MFEI works to strengthen the network of Montana values-based community food systems to ensure producer sustainability and resilience, and support community economic, environmental, social, and human health.
Specifically in the 2022 MFEI project, we seek to:
- Increase Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena’s community awareness about what constitutes a sustainable, resilient local food system
- Support three communities (Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena) in attracting a network of cross-sector food system stakeholders to work with producers to implement strategies that strengthen community food system priorities
- Help build diverse, cross-sector relationships and coalitions in Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena, and connect these community food systems into a statewide network
- Increase the capacity of local communities to assess food system needs and opportunities
- Increase the capacity of local communities to implement producer-led projects that will strengthen the resilience and sustainability of their community food system
The current project focuses on supporting three Montana communities (Billings, Helena, and Fort Belknap) mature their developing community food systems with an in-depth Community Food System Assessment (CFSA). The CFSA is designed to bring together local producers and stakeholders from different community sectors (health, education, food, business), supporting them in building collaborative relationships as they deepen their understanding of their community's food system, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and explore strategies that enhance local sustainable agriculture opportunities, local food economies, and community food access, and food security.
Building a network of collaborative relationships is central to community food system success and helps develop farm-to-school, farm-to-institution (including healthcare), and business-to-business opportunities, supporting local food producers and community food access, food security, and health. It also supports moving the assessment coalition from evaluation and assessment to implementation, with sufficient momentum to keep the network engaged and expanding.
All three communities seek to identify and engage producers with community stakeholders from other community sectors. The Helena group includes members from a producer assessment conducted under AERO’s 2017-2019 WSARE Professional + Producer grant. The Fort Belknap Reservation with the A'aninin population has a burgeoning food sovereignty initiative supported by its community economic development corporation. The assessment will assist initiative implementation and engagement. The Billings Yellowstone Valley Food Hub, a producer-owned cooperative, seeks to identify and engage other community sector stakeholders.
This current MFEI project builds on prior WSARE granted projects, using elements and outcomes from those projects to inform the design and implementation of the current project. In particular, the project will use a producer-centric Advisory Board cohort developed under the 2020-2022 WSARE "Research to Grass Roots" grant funded project to help with assessment design and to participate as experts during the assessment and implementation process.
Cooperators
Education & Outreach Initiatives
Increase Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena’s community awareness about what constitutes a sustainable, resilient local food system
AERO is offering each community coalition educational presentations and resources to build and increase their community knowledge and awareness about what constitutes a sustainable, resilient local food system. This includes a presentation during the first coalition meeting defining community food systems, community food system assessments and the process we will undertake, the five food system sectors, nine asset areas, and the primary and secondary data sources that can support comprehensive assessments. This is complete for Helena, and the first coalition meeting for Fort Belknap will be held January 31-February 2. We also provided the coalition with three articles to build collective knowledge and awareness of best practices in supporting resilient community food systems: Determining Factors for Local Food System Success by Iowa State University; Supporting Local Food System Development in Your Community by Iowa State University; and The place of food: mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems by Robert Feagan. Further readings will follow as we begin to assess asset areas and move into the work of project implementation. We are also gathering and sharing locally-specific resources, such as the Community Health Improvement Plan, community health data, and other research to support increased knowledge about local needs and solutions. Lastly, we will share AERO’s 10-video Video Series “Get to Know Your Montana Food System,” which highlights leaders from diverse food system sectors/asset areas across the state who have been instrumental in supporting creative solutions to advance their local and regional food systems.
We conducted a pre-survey at the first coalition meeting to measure current levels of knowledge, awareness, or skill/ability on a variety of topics related to community food systems. We will compare this to a post-survey at the conclusion of the CFSA to measure an increase in knowledge/skills/awareness.
Support three communities (Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena) in attracting a network of cross-sector food system stakeholders to work with producers to implement strategies that strengthen community food system priorities
The CFSA assessor in partnership with the Local Food Coordinator leads coalition building for each community. This is complete for Helena and nearly complete for Fort Belknap. Each coalition strives to be a cross-sector representation of the local community that includes a diversity of representation from food system sectors, diversity of representation from different business types, local producers, and participants from existing regional coalitions.
Our coalition in Helena includes 14 individuals with diverse cross-sector representation including the local college, nonprofits, county health departments and sanitarians, farmers/ranchers, the local hospital, K-12 schools, and restaurants.
In collaboration with the Fort Belknap Local Food Sovereignty Coordinator and regional partners, we have determined that the Fort Belknap Reservation is best served by supporting each of the four main communities on the reservation–Hays, Dodson, Lodgepole, and Agency–in building their own hyper local/community coalitions. The four communities are geographically spread out and for a variety of reasons (including distance and travel limitations) don't typically engage as a unit. The most successful, lasting outcome will come from working with each community individually to build four community coalitions. Once these coalitions are built, they can collaborate together to share resources and leverage assets, including working together on a common pilot project following the assessment. We will have a “Core Team” that will join all hyper local/community coalition meetings to support overall collaboration and engagement.
Help build diverse, cross-sector relationships and coalitions in Fort Belknap, Billings, and Helena, and connect these community food systems into a statewide network
Coalitions in Helena, Fort Belknap, and Billings are all aware that AERO is supporting similar CFSAs in the other communities. As we move into project year 2 and 3, and project implementation, we will share contact information among the coalitions to support developing a statewide network and connect coalitions to contacts and leaders across the state who are working in sectors of interest. Similarly, AERO’s video series “Get to Know Your Montana Food System” connects the coalitions to local food system leaders across the state in support of building a network web of relationships, linking ideas and connections across the state.
We will evaluate the impact and outcomes of this goal in project years 2 and 3.
Increase the capacity of local communities to assess food system needs and opportunities
Through participating in the nine-month assessment process, led by an AERO trained CFSA Assessor, the community coalitions are building their skills and capacity in assessing local needs and opportunities. In coalition meetings 2-5, we ask the coalition to evaluate the five food system sectors (production, processing, distribution, consumption/access, and resource management) and nine asset areas (community/institutional capital, economic capital, educational capital, environmental capital, equity, food culture, health and wellness capital, and policy and regulation). We provide prompts such as “What is currently happening here?”, “What is missing?”, “What are current challenges and opportunities?”, and “What is going well?”. The coalition members are active drivers in the assessment process, leading the work of identifying current community assets, needs, and solutions. These assessments ultimately support the communities in having the tools and capacity to build and enhance their own local community food system, by being able to identify/assess areas of opportunity and take action to implement projects to address these needs.
We conducted a pre-survey at the first coalition meeting to measure current levels of knowledge, awareness, or skill/ability, including their ability to participate in a CFSA. We will compare this to a post-survey at the conclusion of the CFSA to measure an increase in skill/capacity.
Increase the capacity of local communities to implement producer-led projects that will strengthen the resilience and sustainability of their community food system
At the conclusion of the nine-month assessment, the coalition will identify projects that will support the needs and opportunities that have come forth through the CFSA. They will prioritize 1-2 projects to implement in the following nine months.
We conducted a pre-survey at the first coalition meeting to measure current levels of knowledge, awareness, or skill/ability. We will compare this to a post-survey at the conclusion of the CFSA to measure an increase in skill/capacity.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
Project Phase 1:
1.1 - Community Food System Assessment (CFSA) workshop development and planning is complete. We convened our Advisory Board for three coworking sessions between June-September 2022 to offer feedback and workshop design support to ensure that the CFSA process considered Montana’s specific needs and agricultural landscape. The Advisory Board made adaptations to coalition education building and resources to support the CFSA being appropriate and place-based for Montana.
1.2 - We made slight adaptations to support project efficacy, including the order of the CFSAs (now: Helena first, Fort Belknap second, and Billings third) and training the Local Food Coordinators (LFC) individually at the start of their CFSA to ensure that the information is fresh for them (we realized it did not make sense to train the Billings LFC in 2022 to support their assessment beginning in 2024). We completed the Helena LFC training in fall 2022 at the start of the greater Helena area CFSA, and completed the Fort Belknap LFC training in winter 2022.
1.3 - AERO’s MFEI Video Series, called “Get to Know Your Montana Food System,” is underway with four of 10 videos complete. Each video interviews a leader in our Montana food system exploring challenges and opportunities within their sector (production, processing, distribution, access, and/or resource management) and stories about how they have engaged with their community food system.
Project Phase 2:
2.1 - Coalition Building for Helena and Fort Belknap is complete. The CFSA Assessor and LFC in both regions supported individual consultations and outreach to potential coalition members to explain the CFSA process, answer questions, solicit feedback and ideas for other coalition members, and recruit their participation. As mentioned above, in collaboration with the Fort Belknap LFC and regional partners we have modified the design of the CFSA to best meet local needs. The Fort Belknap Reservation is best served by supporting each of the four main communities on the reservation–Hays, Dodson, Lodgepole, and Agency–in building their own hyper local/community coalitions. The four communities are geographically spread out and for a variety of reasons (including distance and travel limitations) don't typically engage as a unit. The most successful, lasting outcome will come from working with each community individually to build four community coalitions. Once these coalitions are built, they can collaborate together to share resources and leverage assets, including working together on a common pilot project following the assessment. We have a Core Team of individuals, including the LFC, who will be attending each of the hyper local/community coalition meetings.
2.2 - We have held three coalition meetings (represented as “study circle / focus groups”) for the greater Helena CFSA, and will continue the remaining six meetings in spring/summer 2023. The Fort Belknap CFSA kicks off at the end of January with the first coalition meetings scheduled between January 31-February 2.
2.3 - We are documenting our work to support creating a Coalition Building & Partnership Development Guide by the conclusion of our project.
Phase 3:
This portion of the work will begin in project years 2 and 3.
Learning Outcomes
Project Outcomes
Our work is on track to achieve our project outcomes. As stated above, the CFSA process is designed to bring together local producers and stakeholders from different community sectors (health, education, food, business), supporting them in building collaborative relationships as they deepen their understanding of their community's food system, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and explore strategies that enhance local sustainable agriculture opportunities, local food economies, and community food access, and food security. AERO’s Montana Food Economy Initiative program works to strengthen the network of Montana values-based community food systems to ensure producer sustainability and resilience, and support community economic, environmental, social, and human health.
In Helena, we administered the pre-survey and the WSARE survey following Coalition Meeting #1 (a “workshop”). Data in the “Learning Outcomes” reflect results from the WSARE survey.
The learning and action outcomes and impact of our project will be measured in project years 2 and 3. We are still within project year 1 and, as such, final outcomes and impact are not yet available.