food value chain

Case studies and tips on small farm financing

July 20, 2012
Case studies and tips on small farm financing

Financing smaller farms: New resources for lenders who want to learn and activists who want to promote.

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Food Innovation District: New Economic Gardening Tool

April 6, 2012
Cherry Blossom Time, Benzie County Michigan, photo by John Clement Howe. http://tiny.cc/bgmccw

Toolkit in process: How communities can make space for local food and farm entrepreneurs to co-locate, collaborate, and grow.

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VIDEO: Michigan farmers turn up the volume

March 7, 2012
VIDEO: Michigan farmers turn up the volume

For small to large farms it’s clear Michigan markets are growing in local food opportunities.

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Local demand re-shaping market links from farmer to consumer

November 4, 2011
Van Buren County blueberry grower Pedro Bautista is one of the founders of the new Farmers on the Move cooperative and brand. Photo credit: Patty Cantrell

Consumer demand for new taste, transparency, and trust in their food is in fact spurring a new business model – a food value chain —that some entrepreneurs are embracing.

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Food innovation districts work

November 4, 2011
Food innovation districts work

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 [...]

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No foothold for Wal-Mart in Germany. But local food still loses.

October 13, 2010
No foothold for Wal-Mart in Germany. But local food still loses.

Five years ago, the international discount giant Wal-Mart started setting up shop in Germany, one of the last frontiers on Wal-Mart’s road to world domination of consumer product and grocery sales.

Today, Wal-Mart’s blue and white megastores are nowhere to be seen in this land of thousands of brands of local sausages and beer. But it was no local-economy protecting protestors that sent the big retailer packing. Quite the opposite.

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