NESAWG

In 2002 the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) published Northeast Farms to Food: Understanding Our Region’s Food System. Northeast Farms to Food (NEFTF) provides a comprehensive look at the Northeast food and farming system from production through processing and distribution to consumption and diet. It includes over 100 charts and graphs, “farm and food facts,” explanatory text and a chapter on findings and recommendations.

NEFTF was the first phase in an ongoing process to provide our region’s policymakers, educators and citizens with accurate and up-to-date information to help them advocate for a variety of food and farm system issues. NESAWG also wanted to chart trends – to see how we as a region are faring on our path toward a more sustainable and secure regional food system.

In 2004, NESAWG and its partner, the Office of Sustainability at the University of New Hampshire (UNH/OS), published a NEFTF Update. The Update focused on new facts and figures from the 2002 Census of Agriculture which released its data earlier that year. The 2004 Update also included new GIS maps that told their own compelling stories.

This year, NESAWG is proud to partner with UNH/OS, the Northeast Midwest Institute and the NH Center for a Food Secure Future to present the Northeast Farms to Food 2006 Update. The focus of this Update is the federal Farm Bill which is due for reauthorization in 2007. This Update contains some “snapshots” of the Northeast that relate to the role and impact of federal farm policy on our region. For those not familiar with the Farm Bill, we hope this update offers an informative peek into this complex legislation.

The Update is organized into three sections that parallel those in NEFTF. Each section references the related Farm Bill chapters—known as “titles”—and includes information related to them. You’ll find numerous maps, charts and graphs, each of which tells a small part of the story.

The 2006 NEFTF Update is available as pdf file here

For other NESAWG publications, including the original 2002 FEFTF and the 2004 Update, please see our publications page.