About CLRFS
Community, local and regional food systems are increasingly important to individuals, families and communities for a number of social, economic and environmental reasons. Interest in issues related to community, local and regional food systems has exploded of late, and government agencies, universities, Extension services, nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurial groups are generating new information, as well as seeking information, on the wide range of topics encompassed within this community, local and regional food systems umbrella.
This resource is hosted by the Community, Local and Regional Food Systems (CLRFS) National Cooperative Extension Project Team. It is designed to provide information and networking opportunities for educators, community-based practitioners, policy makers, farmers/growers, families and those individuals involved in building equitable, health-promoting, resilient and economically balanced food systems.
As a project team, we:
- Create new content
- Compile and summarize information published by our member organizations
- Make it our goal to offer a unique, online meeting place for diverse groups and interests to share information and learn from one another.
Topics our materials and resources focus on include but are not limited to:
- Beginning farmer & rancher
- Niche production and value chain producers
- Urban agriculture
- Food processing
- Institutional food preparation
- Marketing, markets, and scale
- Distribution & aggregation
- Consumer food preparation
- Nutrition & health
- Resource & waste recovery
- Food & agriculture policy
- Food security
- Food justice & food sovereignty
- Economic development
- Tools for evaluation and program planning
CLRFS Resources you can use:
- CLFRS webinar series
- Feature and Resource articles on a number of relevant topics pertaining to local, regional and community food systems.
- Links highlighting issues pertaining to local, regional and community food systems
- Social media, including Facebook and a project team listserv (localfoodsystems@groups.extension.org)
Membership and our Advisory Team
The National Cooperative Extension project team is comprised of over 450 members and growing! Our members include a number of extension agents/educators/specialists, university researchers and food systems practitioners. Our numbers are growing steadily, indicating the widespread interest in this issue-area.
Our community advisory team is in development, but it will meet regularly via conference calls and will share information through webinars and the website.
Our Supporters & Funders
CLFRS is seeking funders. If you would like more information about our CLFRS project team, or if you’d like to contribute funds, please contact our leader Kathleen Liang at cliang@ncat.edu, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
Contact Us
Please join us! If you have experience and expertise in community, local and regional food systems and would like to join our project team, please contact Katie Himes at katiew@uark.edu.