Food and Farm Policy Project

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CBI Practitioners:

Patrick Field

Clients:

 

In June 2008, after four years of collaborative effort by hundreds of organizations, 27 of 32 policy priorities of the Farm and Food Policy Project were passed into law. CBI played a key role in helping facilitate this unprecedented effort at coordination across six major D.C. policy organizations, some 32 subcontracting organizations, and hundreds of participating organizations from across the U.S.


Case Background
The Farm and Food Policy Project (FFPP) was established through six core grants made by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. These grants aimed to enable grantee, subcontract, and additional participating organizations to work collaboratively to advance four interlocking policy initiatives. The initiatives were designed to unite diverse constituencies and to help build a more sustainable food and agriculture system in the United States. The Project had four broad goals:

  1. Promote new agricultural markets and rural entrepreneurship;
  2. Enhance the economic viability of small- and moderate-sized family farms and ranches;
  3. Reward environmental stewardship;
  4. Combat hunger by increasing access to healthy food through community food systems.


The CBI Approach
CBI served in a variety of contexts. Initially, in 2004, CBI assisted the Kellogg Foundation in convening applicants from ten separate collaborative proposals in St. Paul, Minnesota. After this workshop, CBI helped the potential applicants to coalesce around a core proposal. The nearly $5 million grant was awarded collectively in April 2005. From this point forward, working in close partnership with the Northwest Midwest Institute, CBI helped the collaboration develop protocols, convene and facilitate a twelve-person national coordinating committee, and support four work groups. CBI provided facilitation, mediation on key, difficult program and policy issues, provided coaching and assistance to the project coordinator, and as the project drew to a close, provided the process evaluation. In addition, CBI supported the related Diversity Initiative, an effort to bring socially disadvantaged producers and advocates together across ethnic and racial groups to advance the interests of traditionally underserved populations.


Outcomes
The national farm and food policy arena is, understandably, complex and diverse. Though other bills do affect farm and food policy, the farm omnibus bill, which appears every five years, has generally served as a kind of “kitchen sink” for America’s agricultural system, commodity policy, conservation policy, anti-hunger and rural infrastructure—even including water supply and affordable housing loan programs—to name only a few. Unlike many issues in D.C., the Farm Bill is driven primarily by geographic interests, rather than those of political parties. Upon passage of the bill, an estimated $750 million will flow over five years to improve the lives of family and socially disadvantaged farmers, increase and improve conservation, and move our food system toward more local, healthy food for all.

CBI is currently undertaking an evaluation of the process, in conjunction with the Headwaters Group, to identify key lessons learned for policy collaborations.

 

For more information on this case, please contact Managing Director Patrick Field.

 

Related Links: 
Farm and Food Project