Northern Berkshire Local Food Meeting planned Nov. 3 at Images Cinema

This announcement was written by Jay Walsh.

Time: November 3, 2010 from 10am to 2pm
Location: Images Cinema
Organized By: Northern Berkshire Transition:

Event Description:
Northern Berkshire* Local Food Security Study
The first phase of this project is a local food security study, leading to a comprehensive report profiling our community’s food needs and the local resources available to meet them.

The second phase is a community food planning process, during which we will use our assessment to identify projects, partnerships, and policy changes which will use local resources to meet the food needs of the citizens populating the Northern Berkshire region (population roughly 35,000) and provide expanded economic opportunities for community residents.

Day: Wednesday November 3rd, 2010
Time: Presentation 10 AM - Noon, Followed by lunch/breakout discussion and feedback Noon-2:00PM
Venue: Images Cinema, Spring Street Williamstown, MA. Lunch next door at The Red Herring

Should you like to attend this event please RSVP to nbtransition@gmail.com

Presentation: A representative from the Conway School of Landscape Design will review the details of their recent “Feed Northampton” study. Their services are being considered by Northern Berkshire Transition for conducting a similar study of our region. The purpose of the stakeholder meeting is to get addition feedback on what other important information should be collected that would be useful as part of this study as well as for stakeholders in seeking future funding grants for their respective organizations to expand our local food production.

This process will create greater understanding of our local food resources and organizational capacity to influence local policies including outreach to, and education of, the population served by local foods, zoning for urban gardens, and economic support for new and existing food-related businesses including farmers markets, CSA's, Community Gardens and School Garden Projects. Meeting the goals of this project will provide a solid framework to evaluate current local efforts to meet the food needs of Northern Berkshire* residents and will provide a model for future efforts to address further need.

The process will broaden the coalition of individuals and organizations addressing these needs and enable us to move forward with future projects in a strategic way.

In addition, we are looking to involve students from both MCLA and Williams Colleges to conduct specific independent research to feed into the larger study by the Conway School. This final report will present pertinent baseline data on nutrition and crop-growing requirements; analyzes town and city development and social patterns; evaluates natural conditions that affect food-producing potential; offer case studies and existing models of localized food production; and create conceptual designs for food production in the Northern Berkshire region.
You can review similar studies recently conducted by the Conway School below.

Feed Northamptonhttp://issuu.com/conwaydesign/docs/feed_northampton_april2010
Cultivating Resilience -Shelburne Falls, MAhttp://issuu.com/conwaydesign/docs/foodsecurity

*Northern Berkshire Consisting of the towns of Adams, Clarksburg, Florida, North Adams, Savoy and Williamstown. The study may include some bordering communities in New York and Southern Vermont.

CONTACT:
Jay Walsh
Northern Berkshire Transition
northernberkshiretransition.ning.com/
nbtransition@gmail.com

See more details and RSVP on Northern Berkshire Transition:
http://northernberkshiretransition.ning.com/events/event/show?id=6027471%3AEvent%3A806&xgi=2wOPVkwiTnxJlR&xg_source=msg_invite_event