RFFP S U M M E R
Newsletter
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RFFP: History, Legacy and Lessons By Tracy Frisch
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n 1993 three friends in the Capital District began looking for a way to motivate more people to care about farm and food issues. Back then, neither the media nor the public at large expressed much curiosity about such subjects. Locavores wouldn't get a name for over another decade, farmers weren't yet revered as celebrities and organic still constituted a small, fringe movement. In this very different context the three of us, Melanie DuPuis (now a UC Santa Cruz professor), Janet Britt (the first Community Supported Agriculture farmer in the state) and I (then the director of the NY Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides), decided to hold one event together to help put sustainable agriculture on the map. We invited a speaker and held a harvest dinner in an Albany church. When 90 people showed up, the Sustainable Community Harvest dinner became an annual tradition. This dinner spawned several years of monthly potlucks at the Albany Quaker meeting that helped lay the groundwork for RFFP. Another thing that grew out of these gatherings was a voluntary simplicity-sustainable living group in Troy that has hosted a speaker every month for 15 years. By 1996 we had convened a working group of farmers and food activists to found a new organization. The Regional Farm & Food Project started modestly with a $5,000 grant and a loose mission. Rather than lobbying the government (and banging our heads against the wall with little to show for our efforts), we chose to work in the real world to expand farmers' capacity to ecologically and profitably produce good food, and forge connections between farmers and consumers. During the years that followed, with a strong vision and committed core, RFFP went on to develop a comprehensive array of activities to promote local foods and help farmers succeed. As a pioneering organization we worked with people and introduced new ideas and models around our region – generally conceived of as 10 counties. For certain projects though, it stretched across the Northeast. We remained committed to raise public awareness with an informative quarterly newsletter and a monthly one-hour radio show aired on WRPI-Troy. And the dinner speaker in 1993, Ram's Horn newsletter editor Brewster Kneen, then of Toronto, ushered in a line of inspiring and provocative speakers at future dinners, including Elizabeth Henderson, Mark Winne, Joel Salatin, Nina Planck and Jerry Brunetti. Over the years our little grassroots organization would make a surprisingly large impact on the food and agriculture scene both here and beyond. One of our specialties was nurturing newer
farmers and helping other farmers change course to become more sustainable -- for example, by pasturing animals, doing valueadded dairy, a CSA, or direct marketing. Ultimately RFFP spurred a variety of groups, agencies and initiatives to emulate its programs. Yet in its early stages our organization was often ignored, scorned or even seen as a threat. After we demonstrated that our vision-driven approach attracted a loyal audience and bore worthwhile results, more mainstream, betterfunded groups got interested in using some of our methods to strengthen and reshape agriculture.
RFFP achievements led the way Helping consumers find farmers: Every two years we produced a large foldout 10-county directory and map of farms using organic, grass-based and sustainable practices. Providing a new paradigm for farmers: Starting in 1996 RFFP held some of the very first Holistic Resource Management courses in the Northeast in order to offer decisionmaking tools for sustainability to farmers and those who work with them. Holistic Management, as it's now called, helps farm families (and businesses and other entities) articulate a holistic goal and manage their whole to reach it. Like the triple bottom line, this goal encompasses economic, environmental and social concerns. HM proved tremendously influential in radically shifting the way people think about and run their farms. Creating the model for major farmers markets: In 1999 RFFP initiated the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market, culminating many months of organizing and planning. This dynamic, producer-only year-round market has set the standard for other ambitious markets, like the Schenectady Green Market. It has introduced thousands of people to the broad variety of local foods available and helped to revitalize the city. Pioneering local food dinners: Each year we held two large annual celebrations -- our community harvest potluck plus a more formal fundraising dinner prepared by chefs with foods from sustainable local farms. Early on, we put on Through Women's Hands to spotlight women chefs and farmers, while the later event was called Farm Fresh and Fabulous: Chefs Make a Local Feast. (continued on page 3)