Risk, Resiliency and Super Storms: What’s Food Got To Do With It?

 

As it turns out, quite a bit. In August 2011, farmers upstate lost billions of dollars as Hurricane Irene wiped out crops and farm equipment and took vital physical infrastructure (such as meat and produce processing facilities) offline during the peak harvesting season. Fourteen months later, Hurricane Sandy forced grocery stores and farmers’ markets to close — some for as little as one day, others for as long as several months — leaving residents in vulnerable neighborhoods like Red Hook and the Rockaways with limited access to food.

 

Community Food Funders (CFF) is a philanthropic organizing project that supports the growth of a sustainable food system throughout our region, and after witnessing Sandy’s devastating impact, CFF saw an opportunity to think about strategies for increasing resiliency, both on regional farms and in our food distribution infrastructure.

 

During “Risk and Resiliency in the Food System,” a three-part breakfast series that wrapped up on June 11, funders, farmers, community leaders and food systems experts throughout the tri-state region came together to hear powerful stories from farmers and critical, informal, community-based “first responders.” Together, we explored how the storms reshaped notions of resiliency within the food system and impacted thinking about food system security — and how this will influence the planning process for long-term disaster preparedness and rebuilding.

 

Jean-Paul Courtens, a bio-dynamic farmer at Roxbury Farm, and Jimmy Daukas of American Farmland Trust highlighted that affordable, long-term access to land is critical, especially if we want farmers to convert to sustainable growing practices. Groups like Shore Soup Project, Occupy Sandy and the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance emphasized the need for continued community capacity building, and the importance for on-going bottom-up leadership as city and state governments seek long-term solutions to extreme weather. And food supply chain experts like GrowNYC, Corbin Hill Farm and EcoFriendly Foods all highlighted the high risks of building regional food infrastructure, as well as the challenge of securing financing to grow regional supply chains (hence the need for social investment at this point in time).

 

From beginning to end, strengthening our networks, and continuing to bring folks from across the food value chain together, emerged as a major theme. The series also underscored many key points that CFF will continue to explore, such as: the need for infrastructure that is adaptable and responsive to changing environmental needs; the need to integrate food systems and the food supply into various planning scenarios, especially regional planning; and the importance of food supply chains and food hubs to help “connect farms to forks.”

 

To learn more about our work, or get involved, please contact Abby Youngblood at abby@northstarfund.org.