Building Professional Support for Institutional Purchasing - Buy Local Campaign Programs

Building Professional Support for Institutional Purchasing - Buy Local Campaign Programs

Summary

This program is building the capacity of 100 Northeast Cooperative Extension Agents and sustainable agricultural professionals to assist farmers, food service directors, student groups, faculty, and others in the development of institutional purchasing and ‘buy local’ campaign projects. Agricultural professionals trained in the nuts and bolts of these types of projects can play an important role in catalyzing these initiatives, increasing their odds of success, and ultimately improving the economic viability of farmers in their region. We are producing a training manual, conducting eight professional development workshops, and providing technical assistance to participants who will implement action plans.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Of the 100 Extension and other agricultural professionals who participate in the first training workshop, 70 will demonstrate increased knowledge and skills to facilitate and foster institutional purchasing and/or buy local campaign projects. Sixty four per cent of those will initiate, assist with or participate in such projects.

Accomplishments/Milestones

We completed the training manual “Supporting Buy Local Campaigns & Farm-to-Institution Projects: A Resource Manual for Agricultural Professionals”. We held 4 workshops in four states for a total of approximately 130 participants, exceeding our first milestone of “one hundred agriculture professionals will attend workshop #1”. Approximately sixty participants received technical assistance through the project list serve, individual follow-up calls and in six topical conference calls. A total of 120 people participated on the calls. (Some participants were on more than one call.) We held four field trips (Workshop #2) in four states for a total of 61 participants (slightly below our target of 70). From Workshop #2, we received commitments from 50 participants (exceeding our target of 45) to complete Action Plans. Participants are in the process of executing their Action Plans which are expected to be completed by the end of February 2006.

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