KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 22, 2018 — Nearly 400 people gathered at the 溏心vlog免费B站 on Jan. 18 for the second annual Rhode Island Food Summit to network with those who work in the local food system and to hear from local experts, discuss partnership opportunities, learn about funding sources, and celebrate and support the development of the local food movement in the state.<\/p>\n
Dan Levinson, founder of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Food Center and one of the organizers of the event, opened the program by encouraging the audience members \u201cto see yourself as a great actor in a spectacular community that has a shot at being a game changer in how our culture looks at food.\u201d<\/p>\n
He set the scene for more than 50 speakers, each of whom had just a few minutes to tell their personal story, outline the issues they were tackling, pitch innovative ideas or ask for or offer advice. And throughout the afternoon, Levinson offered those new to the Rhode Island food scene a minute to introduce themselves and their activities.<\/p>\n
Farmer Rob Swanson advocated for increased farmland protection efforts by telling the story of how farmers three generations ago could comfortably raise a family with just 20 dairy cows or 1,000 chickens. Due to the high cost of land in Rhode Island, that is no longer possible without publicly supported programs to preserve farmland.<\/p>\n
Fisherman Chris Brown argued that the fishing industry is facing major changes due to climate change as fish stocks shift their ranges, \u201cdelivering us fish that we don\u2019t have the equipment to catch or the quotas to meet,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the things that will allow us to survive these changes is to redefine success, not by how much we can catch but by what we can do to provide for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The speakers, however, did not just focus on how to produce more local food. They addressed a wide variety of issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we think about food systems, we immediately think about production and consumption, but we forget the pieces in between, especially the less glorious backdoor side of the system,\u201d said Leo Pollock, founder of The Compost Plant. \u201cWe have incredible waste resources here \u2013 animal waste, food waste \u2013 and there\u2019s a real opportunity here. What would it look like if Rhode Island was one of the leaders in thinking about composting infrastructure, composting systems and building soil knowledge?\u201d<\/p>\n
Speakers from the Jonnycake Center, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, and the SNAP Education Program discussed issues of food insecurity and food access.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how much food we\u2019re growing if the hungry people in our state aren\u2019t getting it,\u201d Levinson said. \u201cThe system isn\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other speakers addressed urban gardens, school gardens, aquaponics, cut flowers, breweries, food-related education and workforce development, and numerous other topics.<\/p>\n
Many speakers emphasized the importance of working toward a regional food system and the objective of \u201c50 by 60\u201d \u2013 producing 50 percent of the food consumed in the region locally by the year 2060. Rhode Island currently produces just 2 percent of the food consumed in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are we at 2 percent?\u201d asked Ken Ayars, chief of the Rhode Island Division of Agriculture. \u201cBecause we\u2019re at the end of a long period of time when food lost its place in society. So we have a long way to go. But we can make things right. We just need to stay positive, proactive and collaborative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entrepreneur and 溏心vlog免费B站 alumnus Perry Raso, who owns Matunuck Oyster Bar as well as an aquaculture farm and a vegetable farm, concluded the program by asking the audience to \u201cmaintain your connection to 溏心vlog免费B站. It\u2019s the number one resource in the state for supporting sustainable agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 22, 2018 — Nearly 400 people gathered at the 溏心vlog免费B站 on Jan. 18 for the second annual Rhode Island Food Summit to network with those who work in the local food system and to hear from local experts, discuss partnership opportunities, learn about funding sources, and celebrate and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}