AERO makes an impact: Building Community Food Webs

May 19, 2021

 How do we go from a few [farming] innovators to building a food system?

“By building an economy around this innovation….What we are really trying to build here are community-based food systems.”

– Nancy Matheson, AERO Sustainable Ag Coordinator, ca. 1990’s. Quoted from a communication in the mid-1990’s. (p. 67, Building Community Food Webs) 

Yes, we did share about Ken Meter’s new book in our last ENews blog. This month, we’re encouraging you put the book at the top of your stack and at least read Chapter 2. If you are a long-time AERO supporter, you’ll see your efforts over the last 35 years (!) celebrated on these pages.  If you are new to AERO or Montana’s amazing local food system work, it’s a chance to learn on whose broad shoulders our current work stands.

Available now from Island Press or Amazon. Purchase from Amazon Smiles and select AERO as the organization you want to support. It’s a win-win-win!

For those of you who don’t yet know Ken, here’s his bio:

Ken Meter is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the U.S., integrating market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns. Meter holds 50 years of experience in inner-city and rural community capacity building. His local economic analyses have promoted local food networks in 144 regions in 41 states, two provinces, and 4 tribal nations. He developed a $9.85-milllion plan for local food investment for the state of South Carolina, and completed similar studies for New Mexico, New Hampshire, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and Minnesota. He developed strategic regional food plans for nearly 20 regions across the U.S. Meter consulted with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service and Colorado State University as one of 14 co-authors of a toolkit for measuring economic impacts of local food development. He is author of Building Community Food Webs, published by Island Press in 2021. He is one of 3 co-editors of Sustainable Food System Assessment: Lessons from Global Practice, published by Routledge (UK) in 2019. Meter is also a member of the International Economic Development Council, where he presented at several annual meetings. He has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Minnesota.