This path was created by Maria Frank.
Various groups trying to improve the food system in this region...
...are working to address the difficulties of communicating or working together.
This statement was based on passages from "Finding Food in Farm Country":
"Each [initiative described] offers chances for neighbors to build stronger bonds of loyalty, a more intimate sense of each other, and greater capacity to trust - the kinds of community fabric a scientist might call social capital. By planning together to address the needs of their own communities, by gathering together to dine or share stories, and by lingering with each other as business is transacted, participants in each project build a certain amount of new wealth for the community." (p.8)And it is reflected in statements from Olmsted County...
"The farmers who raise food for Sunflower Fields Farm CSA and for the cooperative GROWN Locally took action to protect their region's biodiversity. In addressing that concern, these farmers learned they could help build important connections among their neighbors." (p.22)
On a past version of their webpage, describing community garden impacts: "If residents can work together to create a productive green space, they can use those same skills to address critical problems like crime, homelessness, and blight plaguing their communities."...and the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture.
"MISA believes that agriculture is a system in which the land, the people and the production of food are interwoven. One aspect of the system cannot be changed without influencing all of it. MISA believes that all efforts to improve agriculture should take care to balance the long-term economic, ecological and social effects."