GOOD FOOD FOR ALL Grow it
Move it
Eat it
Recycle it
A BRIEF HISTORY In 2011, Growing Power Founder Will Allen pitched an idea to former UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Michael Lovell of initiating a partnership to foster academic /community/civic collaborations focused on advancing urban agriculture.
KEY MILESTONES TO DATE: Michael Lovell and Will Allen announced a collaboration to create a visible and vibrant institute. This partnership expanded to include other higher education institutions, the City of Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Food Council. These entities formed a temporary steering committee to implement the Institute for Urban Agriculture and Nutrition. All IUAN institutional partners (see logos on back) signed a Memo of Understanding.
The IUAN Steering Committe received funding from the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program (HWPP) for several pilot projects, and from the Growth Agenda for Wisconsin Grant Program (GAWGP) to begin building the infrastructure necessary to implement the IUAN. A formal partnership was established between the Community Collaborative Council and the Academic Council. The CCC includes the Milwaukee Food Council, Growing Power and community leaders. It plays a key role in determining the IUAN research agenda in collaboration with the IUAN Academic Council. A formal agreement for Organizational Structure and Operational Principles will be finished by 2015.
FOOD SYSTEM COMMUNITY PROJECTS
IUAN is partnering with Victory Garden Initiative, which runs the Concordia Gardens project in Milwaukee’s Harambee neighborhood, to provide healthy composted soil, free of lead and other contaminants, to urban gardeners who are growing their own food.
Moving food includes everything from harvesting, cleaning, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, retailing and more. IUAN is working with Growing Power to train entrepreneurs interested in starting sustainable businesses to move good food to your table.
To increase demand for healthy foods, IUAN has teamed up with 16th Street Community Health Center and CORE/El Centro in Milwaukee’s Latino neighborhoods to teach gardening to kids. This project includes working with kids’ parents using a promotore model that reinforces the benefits of providing good food for the entire family.
Growing, moving and eating good food creates nutrient-rich waste. To close the food system circle, waste can be recycled into new soil. IUAN is supporting Damian Coleman, founder of Elyve Organic Compost, with training, marketing, business planning, zoning compliance, and planting fruit trees with neighborhood kids in his central-city community garden.
JOIN THE IUAN DIRECTORY! IUAN’s database directory serves as the LinkedIn for food system people. Engage people in the community who are interested in urban agriculture and invite them to join. This database directory identifies scientists, practitioners, community members, faculty, staff, and students interested in working in urban agriculture. It links academics across institutions and supports interdisciplinary and inter-institutional work among IUAN’s academic partners. IUAN’s database directory serves as a catalyst to discover complementary interests between academia and the community and promote research funding for these collaborations. Please join us in IUAN activities. Join the database at:
iuan.community-food.org For more information, contact IUAN Outreach & Research Director Bonnie Halvorsen at halvors3@uwm.edu