GSIPM

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
$45 includes light breakfast and lunch

The Business of Sustainability:Growing Health, Wealth, and Ecological Integrity in Our Food System,
a pre-conference to EcoFarm in Pacific Grove, CA

From the field to the plate, businesses along the food chain are shaking the roots of the American economic system, which typically encourages consolidation, cost-cutting, and shifting costs onto others such as marginalized workers or planetary health. Newer business models are popping up all over, from tiny fishing villages in Alaska to college towns in Florida and big cities in the Midwest. These new businesses are better for people, the planet, and our collective pocketbook. They embody the “triple bottom line,” in which measurements of business success are much more than how the profit and loss statements read. With a diversity of ownership structures, start-up financing, equity strategies, marketing techniques, etc., these businesses are showing the way for a new form of commerce that makes money while making good. Intended for both aspiring entrepreneurs and those already immersed in business, this preconference will have a variety of practical workshops and inspirational speakers for whatever stage of food and farming business you are in. Anyone and everyone is invited, but we especially encourage aspiring food and farming entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, academics and researchers, students, NGOs, funders, and government agency folks to attend. $45 includes lunch and a light breakfast. All attendees will receive a copy of the new Wallace Center book, Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace, which profiles 24 innovative food businesses from around the world.  This is a $25 value for free!

Check the Announcements<http://casfs.ucsc.edu/> section on the CASFS home page for more information and contact Rebecca Thistlethwaite, rthistle@ucsc.edu<mailto:rthistle@ucsc.edu>, 831-459-5036 for information about scholarships.

Organized by the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. Co-sponsors include ALBA, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, California Center for Cooperative Development, California Food & Justice Coalition, Crossroads Resource Center, Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association, La Montanita Coop, National Cooperative Grocers Association, New Seasons Market, Roots of Change, Swanton Berry Farm, Veritable Vegetable, and Wallace Center at Winrock International

Here is the link to register: http://eco-farm.org/efc/pre_conferences/#business