Regional Strategies for Farm and Food Policy Innovation

Imagine farms of all sizes and kinds thriving on diverse landscapes from Maine to West Virginia. Millions of Northeast citizens purchasing farm products grown and raised close to home. Communities embracing agriculture as welcomed economic development. Healthy foods available from our most rural corners to every urban neighborhood. Farmland available for entrepreneurial farmers of every age and background. Northeast Ag Works! envisions this future and is working to make it possible.

Northeast Ag Works! is a region-wide project to propose, promote and support public policies that sustain and foster our region’s agriculture and food system.

Northeast Ag Works! region includes the six New England states, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia. The Northeast has a rich natural resource base, the largest population base in the nation, and increasingly, citizens who understand and care about the connections among food, health, environment and community vitality.

Northeast Ag Works! is a place-based collaboration. We believe that giving greater voice to regional issues will ensure more equitable and responsive state and federal policies and programs. With supportive public policies, our resilient farm and food system can thrive. But there’s work to be done.

Northeast Ag Works! will: -Help create innovative state policies, for example to encourage states to purchase local agricultural products and to link agriculture and economic development. -Make it easier for all farmers to process and sell their products by removing regulatory barriers and promoting cross-state cooperation to foster robust local and regional markets.

-Promote federal food and farm policies, with a particular focus on the 2007 Farm Bill, that are more responsive to our region’s unique conditions and needs.

Northeast Ag Works! is a resource for information. We will provide legislators and staff, agency administrators, and interest groups with high quality and timely policy related research, tools, resources and forums. Through a wide range of activities over the next two and a half years, Northeast Ag Works! will advance supportive, responsive and innovative state, regional and federal food and farm policies for the Northeast.

Northeast Ag Works! is funded in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information, contact Kathy Ruhf, project director at 413-323-9878 or [email protected]