Michigan Good Food

Governor proposes $1 million for food hubs

2012-02-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Michigan’s need and opportunity to build stronger community and commercial connections between food producers and consumers is attracting important attention from the state capitol.

Last week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder presented his fiscal 2013-2014 budget recommendations. They include support for regional food hubs and other investments in the farm sector’s capacity to meet growing demand for healthy, green, fair, affordable food.

State lawmakers will have the final say in budget process. But here are highlights from the Governor’s recommendation for Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development:

· Regional Food Hubs - $1 million to support food hubs providing increased markets and value-added economic opportunities for Michigan farmers and businesses.

· Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) – an additional $1 million to help us meet the goal of completing 5,000 verifications by 2015.

· Migrant Labor Housing - $400,000 for additional migrant labor program staff to conduct seasonal housing inspections at Michigan’s 850 migrant labor camps which house 22,000 migrants.

· Food Safety – an additional $500,000 to assist with preventive food safety measures, including implementing new federal Food Safety Modernization Act requirements.

· Rural Development - $600,000 for additional staff to identify and coordinate increased rural and economic development efforts, and provide additional export market development expertise.

· Conservation District Grants - $500,000 to provide landowners with assistance grants in managing their forestland to help increase the number of acres under a sustainable forestry management plan.

To view the Governor’s Executive Budget in more detail, visit http://www.michigan.gov/budget. You can also let your state representativesand senatorsknow what you think about these recommendations.

Urban Agriculture Meets MI Right to Farm Act

2012-01-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Urban agriculture is one of those things that virtually everyone recognizes as a powerful way to strengthen Michigan.

Urban agriculture brings healthy food to neighborhoods without quality grocery stores. It brings neighbors together, which strengthens investments that families and businesses make in a community’s future. Urban agriculture also brings opportunities to young people who can get started farming at relatively low cost on vacant lots.

To move forward, however, Michigan’s city governments need to be comfortable with agriculture in their densely populated areas. One of the first challenges they’re facing is a state law called the Michigan Right to Farm Act, which supersedes any local say in the matter of how a farm operates.

“The Right to Farm Act didn’t anticipate farming growing in the city,” says Malik Yakini, executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. “What’s appropriate for a traditional rural farm may not be appropriate in the city, with houses right across the street.”

Yakini is among those eager for a solution to the confusion that the Right to Farm Act’s power over local government action is creating for cities like Detroit.

Possible Answer?

James Johnson, Environmental Stewardship Division Director with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, is working on it.

“The Michigan Commission of Agriculture (which administers Right to Farm) is very clear that it’s not interested in being an impediment to people growing their own food, whether home gardens, community gardens or full-blown agricultural operations,” he says.

The Commission attempted to solve the problem in late 2011 with a revision to its Generally Accepted Agricultural Management Practices, or GAAMPS, which the Commission uses to determine whether a farm’s practices can be protected under Right to Farm. The revision would allow cities with more than 100,000 people to develop their own ordinances for agriculture but also require those cities to exempt any farms that have started operating in the meantime from new city rules.

The city of Detroit finds that approach inadequate and contends that allowing existing operations to continue practices that would be nonconforming is unacceptable.

Another Idea.

Michigan residents and lawmakers may want to consider a more comprehensive proposal set out by planning and zoning experts in the winter 2011 edition of the Michigan State Law Review.

The article’s authors recommend taking the legislative steps needed to fully hash out how large a city must be to gain exemption from Right to Farm. In addition they suggest amendments to the state’s key planning and zoning enabling acts. State government could encourage communities to plan and zone for urban agriculture by including such direction in those laws.

The authors further suggest that lawmakers could actually make planning and zoning for urban agriculture a condition for gaining exemption from Right to Farm Act’s preemption of local control. In this way, the state could spur more urban agriculture zoning action.

Pure Michigan promotion opening to agriculture

2012-01-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Les Timmer’s southeast Michigan carrot farm on Muck Road near Imlay City is about as pure Michigan as you can get.

But like most of Michigan’s agricultural products, Timmer’s carrots sit side by side in grocery stores with carrots from California and elsewhere. It’s not easy for Timmer’s Michigan carrots to stand out in that global commodity crowd.

That could change, however, because the Michigan Economic Development Corporation is now making the state’s highly successful Pure Michigan logo available for free to farmers and other businesses.

Pure Michigan is one of the strongest destination brands in the world; Forbesmagazine has put it in the Top 10 of all time. Now farmers like Timmer can use it to connect with a large and growing contingent of shoppers who prefer to buy Michigan products.

“It’s a very good promotional idea that could go like crazy,” Timmer says. He plans to take the next step of requesting a licensing agreement to use the Pure Michigan logo. “All we’d have to do is talk to our bag supplier and add that to the printing,” he says.

How much Michigan?

The big question that could slow use of Pure Michigan in agriculture, however, is how purely Michigan a product must be to use the logo.

Many Michigan-made products include ingredients from other places, and some products, such as pineapple or potatoes, may be packed for distribution by Michigan companies but are not from Michigan.

That’s why the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which administers the program, is working with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop criteria. They are working to assure consumers that a significant percentage of the value of a product has been contributed within the state.

Until those criteria are available, the agricultural meaning of the Pure Michigan brand and needed guidance for farmers and food businesses remain up in the marketing air.

Michigan residents and farmers who want to get these criteria moving along can contact MEDC Marketing Director Kelly Wolgamott, wolgamottk@michigan.organd Linda Jones of the MDARD business development division, jonesL9@michigan.gov, with carbon copies to state representatives and senators.

State leaders take interest in food hubs

2012-01-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

Communities across Michigan are in varying stages of developing regional food hubs for business incubation, local food distribution, and more. Now the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is taking notice of this powerful undercurrent in one of the state’s largest industries.

Late last year the MDARD gathered leaders of several regional food hub efforts from across the state in Lansing. The purpose of the day-long session was to gather input on next steps the MDARD should take, along with sister agencies, such as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, to support these local food and farm business development efforts.

MDARD Director Keith Creagh says, “a network of long-term, sustainable food hubs can help the state reach its health and wellness goals by increasing the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.” He cites strong interest from Michigan Governor Rick Snyder who has noted the value of local agriculture development in recent addresses health and wellness and other topics. “A food hub collaborative can also create new jobs in farming, food processing and other agri-business endeavors,” Creagh says.

For more information about the MDARD’s food hub effort, contact coordinator Jeanne Hausler at 517-373-9790, hauslerj@michigan.gov. For more information about regional food hubs in general, check out this U.S. Department of Agriculture-sponsored Web site at the National Good Food Networkon the trend and examples from around the country.

Eastern U.P. Gets Its Food Summit On!

2011-11-17T11:39:00.001-08:00

Farmers, grocers, teachers, restaurateurs and local government leaders from the Eastern Upper Peninsula huddled together Nov. 10 in Sault Ste. Marie to talk local food economy.

They celebrated the fact that Chippewa, Luce and Mackinac counties have a long and bountiful agricultural history, and that many new farms are growing in that self-determined land between the Mackinac Bridge and the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge to Canada.

Putting that past and present together for a future of good food and profitable farming in their rural communities was the topic for the day. They were not the least bit fazed the region's short growing season or sparse population. The sentiment throughout the day was one of: “We're a small community, and we know how to work together.”

“I take barter, too,” added Steve Twardy as an example, regarding his willingness as co-owner of Harmony Health Foods in Sault Ste. Marie to work with farms in the region. “Packing and distribution is also an area where I feel we could work with farmers to share the burden of getting product to the store,” he said.

About 50 area food and farm leaders attended the Eastern U.P. Local Food Summit, organized by the Eastern Upper Peninsula Food Hub project, the Chippewa County Conservation District and Michigan State University Extension.

It was a day of celebrating a full plate of activities and initiatives around healthy and local food in the eastern U.P. and beyond. It was also a day of planning next steps toward a U.P. future in which healthy diets are common, and farming is a busy, profitable part of rural life.

Some highlights of existing work that Summit participants celebrated include:

More than 1,000 people attending an August Breakfast on the Farm event.
A new local foods issue of the area’s Homegrown magazine.
Seven farmers’ markets in three Eastern U.P. counties, including a winter extension of the Sault Ste. Marie market at the Bayliss Public Library.
The Marquette Food Coopand its role as a market for farms and an educational resource for everyone. Projects include the U.P. Farm Directory and the Marquette Hoophouseproject.
A major Centers for Disease Control grantto the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians that will support development of local food councils and other health initiatives.

Upcoming steps toward uniting the Eastern and entire U.P. on food and farming opportunities include:

The “U.P. Agricultural Assessment,” which a coalition of groups will release in early January. The project has collected data about farmers and farming in the U.P. along with videos and close-up interviews of agricultural entrepreneurs. Contact Marquette Food Coop outreach director Natasha Lantz for more: 906.225.0671 ext.11, <outreach@marquettefood.coop>.
Regional food hub discussions both in the Eastern U.P. and at the Marquette Food Coop as a central point for the entire U.P. The Marquette Food Coop is preparing to expand, and its most likely location could include teaching space and a small warehouse and distribution area, said general manager Matt Gougeon.

With one-third the land area of Michigan, but just 3 percent of its population, the U.P. — separated by climate and the Straits of Mackinac from the rest of the state — has some special challenges. But from the enthusiasm and confidence in the room at the Summit, the “Yoopers” are not bothered.

Detroit Forms Food and Ag Business Support Network

2011-11-17T11:28:00.001-08:00

It was clear at a meeting of Detroit-area food and farm entrepreneurs earlier this month that city and state leaders are beginning to invest in the food and agriculture sector’s potential to grow badly needed jobs and businesses.

Nearly 70 people filled the midtown church meeting hall Nov. 3 to launch the Detroit Ag and Food Business Cluster Network. Among dozens of new and old Detroit food names — such as Aunt Mid’s Produce (est. 1948) and McClure’s Pickles (est. 2007) — sat a full slate of city and state agencies intent on leveraging the job-generating power of Michigan food.

The attention is noteworthy, according to Dan Carmody, president of Detroit Eastern Market, a retail and wholesale food hub for the city for 120 years. Detroit Eastern Market is working with the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC), which is leading the effort to organize the business-to-business support network.

“For us it’s great to see food rising up the food chain as far as economic development,” Carmody said. Just a few years ago Michigan’s economic development focus was almost exclusively on the high-tech sector, he said, with whispers of “forget about it” when it came to proposing projects to support smaller food and farm businesses.

Now the everyday stabilizing value of jobs and business investment in the food and agriculture sector is drawing attention. Keith Creagh, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director, told the group that over the last decade Michigan’s food and agriculture industry has expanded five times faster than the general economy.

Avalon International Breads is one example of the food sector’s entrepreneurial power in Michigan’s challenging environment.

Bringing new economic lifeblood to midtown Detroit has been part of the organic artisan bread maker’s mission since 1997 when it converted a Willis Street storefront. Now overflowing with wholesale and retail activity, Avalon International Breads has found new interest from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and others in helping the company expand.

“I’ve been trying to get a loan to grow for the last seven years,” said co-owner Ann Perrault. Now she’s working with agencies that are eager to help the company map out and finance growth opportunities, including distribution options that could serve other small businesses as well.

DEGC business retention manager Kenyetta Hairston-Bridges said Detroit’s strong base of food businesses is one of four industry clusters the economic development agency is now focused on growing by linking existing businesses and entrepreneurs.

The win-win opportunity of Detroit food businesses working together is obvious to Scott Keech, executive vice president of sales for Michigan Box Company, which has been in Detroit since its founding in 1927.

“We work with everyone from small startups to Fortune 500 companies,” he said. Keech explained the network is a good way for Michigan Box and other food and farm entrepreneurs to connect, share ideas, and join forces as a business community.

Camille Walker, manager of metro-Detroit business development for the MEDC, said she’s eager to work with food and farm businesses, and that she now has more ability to do that. “For years I was the only person from MEDC working in the city of Detroit. Now there is a team of us working here.”

Entrepreneurs, food business innovation go together

2011-10-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

It’s widely understood in economic development circles that if you want new entrepreneurs to start up and grow, a good strategy is to bring them together and let the creativity roll.

A good example is People’s Pierogi Collective, which grew in one year from a startup hot food cart at Detroit’s Eastern Market to contract talks with local and regional grocers and requests to franchise nationwide.

Founder Kimberly Stricker is keeping the franchise potential in mind as she ramps up her new business, currently at nine part-time employees and growing. People’s Pierogi Collective produces pierogis (filled dumplings) for retail outlets and for food cart sales at farmers markets and locations around southeast Michigan.

Peer Power. Stricker attributes much of her success so far to the diverse community of customers, other small businesses, and related resources she has found in and around Eastern Market, a retail and wholesale hub for fresh food sales and local food enterprises since 1891.

Just as economists predict, when similar businesses cluster together at places like Eastern Market, new products, sales, and needed facilities and services emerge.

“Eastern Market has really been pivotal,” Stricker says. “It’s a big part of what changed us into a real business.”

Making sure more Michigan communities have districts like Eastern Market, where food entrepreneurs can connect and innovate, is a powerful way to accomplish the job and economic development potential of the growing local and regional food sector. Such districts can provide valuable business-to-business synergy and stimulate development of new enterprises to fulfill needs many local food entrepreneurs have in common, such as smaller-scale food processing and distribution.

Frank Gublo, a business counselor with MSU’s Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources, often points his clients in the direction of Eastern Market and other places where they can hook up with and learn from other small businesses, and conduct low-cost market research and product development.

“I tell clients, before they launch, they should really be engaged in a community like that at Eastern Market, he said. “Even though they might not sell there for very long, people there know how to do things. It’s where they can go to learn and connect.”

Toolkit in the works. Michigan communities will soon benefit from a 2012 USDA-funded project to provide guidance on what such districts look like and how to develop them locally.

The Northwest Michigan Council of Governments, in conjunction with the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU, will lead the effort to build a toolkit of effective planning, zoning, and economic development approaches to fostering the growth of “food innovation districts” in Michigan.

For more information about that effort, contact Sarah Lucas of NWMCOG (231.929.5034, sarahlucas@nwm.cog.mi.us) or Kathryn Colasanti at the Mott Group (517.353.0642, colokat@msu.edu).

A little help with paperwork can boost farms’ sales

2011-10-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

Walt Harris knows how to keep the sweet corn, tomatoes, squash, and other fresh products he grows for local grocers and his own farm market in northern Michigan’s Benzie County safe to eat.

“I’ve been accused of being downright phobic at times when it comes to keeping things clean,” he says.

But Harris’ attention to food safety detail is not enough to earn him the credentials he will need to sell crops to grocery stores, schools, restaurants, and others. Buyers are increasingly asking farms to produce documents that show they have passed rigorous food safety inspections based on USDA guidelines called Good Agricultural Practices, or GAP.

“I already have one customer requiring GAP. They're letting me skate for the time being … I am actually quite close. I’d be able to pass if I was a good test taker.”

To pass GAP-based food safety certifications, farms must produce extensive food safety plans and keep thorough records. They must also pay inspectors $96 an hour, including travel time. In 2009, the cost for one audit ranged from $92 to $1,600. A farm that produces a variety of fruits and vegetables is likely to need more than one audit to cover all the crops.

“It’s hard for most anybody to part with $1,000,” Harris says. It’s especially difficult when little technicalities during an audit could cause a farm to fail and lose that money.

Benefits of cost sharing. To help farms and their communities seize such opportunities, Michigan should implement a food safety audit cost-share or reimbursement program targeted at small and medium-sized farms. That’s the direction hundreds of Michigan citizens and organizations provided lawmakers in the Michigan Good Food Charter, a state policy platform developed in 2009 with widespread grassroots involvement.

Such direct assistance with the high cost of food safety audits is a relatively low-cost way to support new business and jobs in Michigan agriculture.

Studies show that Michigan can generate significant numbers of jobs by helping the state’s farms market their fresh and local produce. One 2008 analysis shows Michigan could generate 1,780 new jobs and $211 million in personal income if residents ate recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, and if that produce came from Michigan when in season (Conner et al, 2008).

Sales potential. This opportunity is now. Schools, universities, and hospitals are among large-volume buyers now seeking local farm foods as a way to put fresher tastes on students’ and patients’ plates while also supporting their local economies.

In the summer of 2011, half of Michigan’s 150 hospitals signed pledges to source 20 percent of their food by 2020 from Michigan producers. K-12 schools and universities also are in the market. Michigan has 60 active farm-to-school programs, and many institutions like Michigan State University are on course to source 20 percent Michigan food by 2020.

Twenty percent of Michigan’s current K-12 and university food expenditures amounts to $50 million per year. It is a significant opportunity for farmers across Michigan.

Make a Regulatory Way for Food and Farm Entrepreneurs

2011-10-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

Nayyirah Shariff is on her way to an entrepreneur’s life of making signature products, employing local people, and investing in her home state of Michigan.

The young woman from Flint has her marching orders from customers who have lined up every week to buy her sweet and savory fresh-baked, organic artisan breads. Now she’s putting this test-market experience into planning her business future.

“I’m looking at putting in a commercial kitchen, and whether I want to focus on supplying restaurants or having my own storefront.”

Shariff’s soon-to-be expanding company, Revolutionary Bread, was made possible by some regulatory wiggle room that the Michigan Legislature opened up in 2010 for home-based food entrepreneurs. She says the state’s action made way for her to try out her products and ideas after a professor encouraged Shariff to pursue her business dream.

The Cottage Food Law, Public Act 113 of 2010, allows for non-potentially hazardous foods that do not require time and/or temperature control for safety to be produced in a home kitchen for direct, face-to-face sale to customers. Before enactment, any food for sale to the public required entrepreneurs to produce it in a licensed commercial kitchen, which is a large investment of time and money for beginners.

Wendy Achatz is a Michigan entrepreneur who started her family’s successful business by trying out their products at flea markets. Achatz Pies now has eight storefronts in Michigan, a commercial bakery, and 140 employees producing fresh and frozen pies for stores across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Achatz Pies uses Michigan fruit almost exclusively and, with a franchise plan in the works, expects those annual fruit purchases to increase to 15 million pounds in five years.

Achatz and her husband were able to rent space in a commercial catering kitchen for their initial pie baking. She’s happy entrepreneurs like herself now have the Cottage Food option for getting started. “I think it’s a beautiful thing. You really have to test the market before you can tell if you have a profitable business opportunity.”

Opportunity

The Cottage Food Law addresses just one of the barriers food and farm entrepreneurs face with regulations that are generally written for larger scale operations and higher risk situations. Michigan has great opportunity to grow jobs in the expanding market for local and specialty foods by examining the state’s overall food law for unnecessary and unreasonable barriers to entrepreneurship.

This regulatory review is underway in 2011 at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. In addition to this attention from the agriculture department, other local and state officials, including economic development, could prioritize this work because jobs are on the line.

The Michigan State University Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources reports that if Michigan could increase the rate of agri-food startup success to a projected 851 per year, then the state could generate 23,020 direct and indirect jobs per year. Ninety-seven percent of those jobs would come from small- and mid-scale startups. Cottage food entrepreneurs are among those the Product Center assists in its work to build such a pipeline of agri-food entrepreneurs in Michigan.

1-2-3-Go!

The MDARD will soon wrap up its review of the state’s food law and then introduce suggested changes to the state Legislature.

It’s important for people and businesses on the ground to have a voice in this process. You can get up to speed and get involved. Here’s how:

Obtain information about the food law review and suggested changes from MDARD’s Tom Tederington, tederingtont@michigan.gov.
Prepare any comments and share with MDARD and lawmakers. Find your state representative here. Find your state senator here.
Once lawmakers prepare legislation, it’s possible to sign up for notices of committee hearings where lawmakers will review it. Your can organize people and businesses from your community to attend or submit comments.

Top Regulator Explains Michigan Food Law

2011-10-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

Michigan Good Food recently talked with state regulator Kevin Besey about the Michigan Food Law. Besey is Director of the Food and Dairy Division at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. He heads up everything associated with food regulations in the state.

His current work includes an update of the Michigan Food Law, which the state Legislature will take up soon, and an overhaul of all the forms and web resources available to entrepreneurs, which Besey has made a top priority.

What is the Michigan Food Law?

The Food Law is the main law that requires somebody selling food to get a license. It also sets the standards for those licenses and establishes who needs a license and who does not.

There are around 65,000 places in the state that have to get a food license (from jelly makers to bread bakers, restaurants, grocers, and food stands at events and fairs). We train and oversee local health departments that handle most of the applications and inspections. The MDARD works directly on about 18,000 of the total 65,000 food licenses.

What happens when you review and update the Michigan Food Law?

First we review the federal Food Code, which makes up 99 percent of the Michigan Food Law. The Federal Drug Administration updates its Food Code every four years, with the most recent update being 2009. Even though most of our regulations are the same as federal regulations, we need to adopt it at the state level so we can enforce it at the state level. We also follow the federal law closely to ensure as much consistency as possible between federal law and state law.

Our review of the Food Law started over a year ago. The state’s 2010 Cottage Food Law exemption for home production of non-hazardous foods is an example of a change we’ve made to make regulations less burdensome for low-risk, smaller scale operations. Building on that experience we added a small business committee to our Food Law review process and invited more stakeholders than usual, including consumers and local food interests, to the table.

In addition to adopting most of the federal Food Code, the Michigan Food Law update will include some adjustments that help clear up often-muddy regulatory areas. It will exempt from licensure small egg producers that sell directly from their homes, for example, and it will draw a clearer line for farmers about when it is that food law regulations apply to on-farm activities.

Once we secure a bill sponsor, the resulting Food Law update will go to the Legislature as one package. Lawmakers will then hold committee hearings, which are an opportunity for people to comment on the bill and communicate with their legislators about it.

Speaking of eggs, people have a lot of questions about what it takes to sell eggs to local customers legally as a smaller scale producer. Can you clarify?

We recently put together a two-page overview for smaller scale producers (less than 3,000 laying hens) who may want to sell to a school, a local grocer, or such.

This group needs a license but the standards are not out of range for many farms. For example, egg washing needs to take place outside the home, but that can be done in an existing outbuilding as long as it has cleanable floors, some refrigeration, and hot and cold water. Inspectors can review what the farm has available and help determine what’s acceptable.

Farms that sell eggs directly from their home could soon be officially exempt from licensure if the pending update to the Michigan Food Law goes through the Legislature.

What are you doing to answer calls, from many directions, for food regulations that are easier for businesses to find and follow?

One of the things we’re doing is a major reworking of the web site so the steps for going into the food business are clearer and simpler.We have a work group, including representatives from the nonprofit Michigan Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS), working with us to make it so an entrepreneur can understand it vs. a regulator writing it. Our communications specialist’s wall is plastered with notes about flow of information, what to take out, what to leave in …

We’re also getting ready to revamp our “plan review” forms,which are more difficult than necessary, for both entrepreneurs and regulators.This will include eliminating instances where an operation needs to complete basically the same plan for three different agencies.

Introduction

2011-10-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Michigan Good Food is a policy initiative centered on the Michigan Good Food Charter. The initiative aims to promote policy changes that will advance "good food" in Michigan - food that is healthy, green, fair and affordable.

Michigan Good Food is pleased to start this blog to provide improved means of communicating new developments in "good food" in Michigan.