Photo courtesy of wupfoodsystems.com

HANCOCK — Agriculture and food production has been gradually increasing in the western Upper Peninsula for more than a decade. There are many programs and services available to both established food growers and people who want to become commercial growers.

Among the organizations dedicated to food production in the western U.P. is the Western U.P. Food System Collaborative which, according to its website, is committed to making food sovereignty, equity and justice a reality for all peoples throughout the region known as Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula, but also known as the Anishinaabe homelands and ceded-territory established by the Treaty of 1842.

Senior Regional Planner, Rachael Pressley, with the Western U.P. Planning and Development Region co-founded the WUPFSC in October 2018.

Shortly after Pressley was hired at WUPPDR, she asked her supervisor what the organization was doing in regards to food system development and what the status of food security in Upper Michigan was. She was given the go-ahead to research on the topic, and she began exploring entities in the region committed to food systems and food sovereignty.

“I found the U.P. Food Exchange,” Pressley said, “and I also found the MSU (Michigan State University) Extension.”

Her next step was to contact and set up meetings with many organizations, including Seed Savers, farmers, food educators to restaurant workers, grocery store employees, schools, hospitals. The primary question at each meeting was what are the food-related needs of the community.

The next step was to host a public meeting that attracted 25 people for a question-and-answer session.

“We started asking questions,” Pressley said. “What do they want in their communities? What do they want in the future? What do they need now? What are some things that we could work on together?”

MSU Center for Regional Food Systems funded seven similar meetings, which were held to learn what defines the western U.P.’s food system, what people want and what should be pursued.

Those meetings served as the catalyst for the organization of the Western U.P. Food Systems Collaborative, which began holding monthly meetings.

The Covid-19 shut-down compelled the group to shift its focus from long-term food systems to short-term goals, such as how to ensure the security of the farmers’ markets, ensuring that there were adequate food supplies, as well as connecting gardeners to local food pantries. Through that, instead of gardeners composting or throwing away excess produce, like zucchini and cucumbers, they were donated to local pantries. The organization also conducts online farmer check-ins that connected growers to necessary resources like Farm Stress, an MSU program.

That group, Pressley said, initiated a project called Growing From the Heart. The program brings in a bunch of community members to decide if they want to have events like mushroom walks, seed starting parties and various workshops.

“Also, it results in me calling every food pantry to see if they would accept local produce,” Pressley said, “and if they did, what does it have to look like, what will it be and when will people drop it off.”

The food system organization then maintains those resource lists.

Since the Western U.P. Food System Collaboration was organized in 2018, it has created eight major projects, including Growing From the Heart, Farm to School, Photovoice, Portage Lake Seed Library, an annual photo contest, and the Community Food Assessments.

[This is part of a series that examines the role the UPFSC plays in developing and expanding an equitable and sustainable food system in the western U.P.]