Innovators in Rural Community Economic Development
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  • Food Hubs and Measurement in Baltimore

Food Hubs and Measurement in Baltimore

Samantha and I were recently in Baltimore, Maryland where we presented a session at the 16th Annual National Value Added Agriculture Conference which was held in conjunction with the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development’s What Works Conference Series in May. The theme of the conference was “Enhancing Food Security and Rural Viability Through Innovative Food System Practices and Opportunities.” Our joint presentation, “Developing Measures that Matter,” introduced participants to the You Get What You Measure® process, through the lens of the work we recently completed with food hubs around the country with the Wallace Center at Winrock International, while discussing real-life examples of food hubs using this approach and developing measures that matter. One food hub, for example, is making progress toward their goal of achieving scale and impact through more involvement with retail buyers and another hub is working to ensure farmers are successful wholesale participants by increasing visibility in the community.

While we were in Baltimore, we also presented a half-day You Get What You Measure® workshop, in a room with a beautiful view of Camden Yard. Since we had three people from around the country who all worked with or for the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC), we used one of the FMC’s goals instead of the case study we had planned on. This gave us an idea about a new model in which we could invite groups to join us for a workshop, but work on their own goals with their own stakeholders. We are currently in the process of figuring out how this might work. Look for more on this soon.

Baltimore, view of the Inner Harbor

Baltimore, May 2014