---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Open Food Network Australia <hello@openfoodnetwork.org.au>
Date: Thu, Nov 7, 2019 at 8:23 AM
Subject: What makes community food enterprises thrive? Our latest report is out!
To: <michel@p2pfoundation.net>

Community food enterprise report, Grant help, Building the Commons, Local food to buy, and more.

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Hi there!
This month has felt like an intense knowledge exchange month for Open Food Network - we've been out listening and talking about food systems at all sorts of events. Ranging from the Planning Institute's annual conference (where we spoke about food system planning) to the GrAiNZ Conference (where we heard about A LOT of exciting ideas), to the ORICoop AGM (where we spoke about our international work) and more - read on for reflections from some of these events. We've also been busy finalising research reports, with the first released right now, in this very newsletter!

Community Food Enterprises report released

We're excited to share our latest report with you: Community Food Enterprises - Their role in food system change, opportunities, challenges and support needs.

It brings together our lessons from running food system activation and community food enterprise incubator programs for the last five years.

We've identified common challenges facing community food enterprises in Australia, plus five critical success factors. We've also highlighted what enterprises, government, and philanthropy can do to create thriving community food enterprises.

This report is for anyone running a community food enterprise, and any agency that wants to see a vibrant regional food economy in their area.

Download the report

Building regional food systems

We're working on two exciting regional food systems development projects at the moment, one in Seymour, and the other in North-East Victoria.

Each project culminates in an event next year, but first involves a regional consultation. In Seymour, we're interviewing as many farmers and food distributors as possible to help uncover regional strengths and opportunities. In the North-East we're collaborating with Landcare to run a number of workshops leading up to the main event.

If you're producing or distributing food in either of those regions, we'd love to have you included. We'll share details of the North-East workshops on social media and in this newsletter. And if you're in the Seymour region, please fill in this form so we can get in touch.

These projects receive funding from the Australian Government's Building Better Regions Fund.

Grants in Victoria - we can help

The Victorian Government has released new grants for ‘small scale and craft’ agricultural businesses. (These are the latest version of the ‘Artisanal Agriculture’ grants.)

We know how flat out you are, so we’ve summarised the key information for you, and outlined some ways we might be able to help you with them.

Find out more.

Building peer-to-peer alternatives

In the last year, we’ve been realising that how we work at the Open Food Network is in fact one of the most important things that we’re creating, as we go about the task of building a better food system. Recent discussions with other thinkers in this space at a Global Commons Forum in Korea affirmed this idea, and gave us new ideas to ponder as we continue forward.

Read some of our reflections from the forum on the value of building community for the commons.

Find local food to buy

Every week there are new shops on the Open Food Network. These are just a few that are open for orders right now!

Gleneden Family Farm
Woodstock Flour
Baw Baw Food Hub
Fish Creek Bulk Foods Group
Local Produce Ladies
Prom Coast Food Collective
Raw Food Hub at Synchronicity Farm
LORE Australia
Grow Lightly Vegie Bags
Hocus Crocus Saffron
Benview Farms
Elmore Compost and Organics

Check back at other times of the week or month to see what else is available.

Want to start your own shop on Open Food Network? It's just a few easy steps.

Last links

Help build research into regenerative agriculture
Join PhD student Annemaree Docking's research into regenerative agriculture by completing this survey (whether you're farming regeneratively or not - this stage of the research is trying to gather as much data as possible).

Thanks for reading!

We're looking forward to sharing our next report with you in our next newsletter, and in the meantime we'll be sharing some of the content we spoke about at various events on our Instagram and Facebook - make sure you're following along.

As always, get in touch if you'd like to learn more about the Open Food Network, or work together on a project.

Cheers,
The Open Food Network Australia team

Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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