The Northeast Ohio Food Congress is set for Friday November 7-8, 2008. The event will feature a series of site case studies on Friday, located around Northeast Ohio. These sites include Crown Point Ecology Center, The Countryside Conservancy, City Fresh, Geauga Family Farms, George Jones Farm, Hiram College, and a site hosted by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Council. The effort is to provide sites around the region for the participants to choose from, each focused upon a particular aspect of the local food system.

Friday evening keynote speaker Wayne Roberts from the Toronto Food Policy Council will speak on his 10 years of building a sustainable food system in Toronto. A panel will then discuss the opportunites and issues leading up to the all day saturday workshops at Hiram.

Saturday events include a keynote speach by Amish writer and farmer David Kline. Topical workshops and programs continue in the morning, with an open space session in the afternnoon to capture the priorities set by the Congress. AT the end of the Congress an agenda will be anounced that addresses benchmarks and tactics needed to advance Northeast Ohio's local food system in the 21st century.

To achieve maximum effect the Congress is planned to include 14 counties from the region, with a combination of stakeholders and at-large delegates that will inform and champion the agenda and benchmarks set by the Congress. These counties are Ashland, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Holmes, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Mahoning, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne. Current plans are for 200 delegates to be invited to the event. Delegates will be chosen by each county (some counties are combined), so that the region is represented. Additional space will be made for statewide organizations and office holders. However public sessions will open the information and process to a wider audience.

This combination is an effort to include a wide audience, while investing in the key individuals who can remove the roadblocks and capitalize on the growing interest in food grown and consumed in Northeast Ohio. The Congress is intended to be a part of a process that engages stakeholdes throughout the region around local agriculture and food issues. Planning sessions are on going and move around the region. For more information contact Chris Norman at Chris@crownpt.org. dated 6.15.08