PICKED - a FOOD CHOICE
Our food choices and behaviors are shaped by the environments in which we live. Each person’s connection to a food system is unique and influenced by wealth, health, location, intergenerational relationships, etc. Today the effects of environmental change also contribute to choices and behaviors that shape our food environments.
Picked! uses food based programing and entrepreneur activities to bring healthy food to neighborhoods through farm market opportunities, community supported agriculture (CSA), cooperative partnerships, community gardens, and hoping one-day mobile outlets.
Food systems are connected to “food environments” that influence consumer choices and behavior. Food choices and outcomes effect nutrition, health and well-being. Social and economic factors as well as environmental impacts contribute to food choices and the development of food systems.
Shaping the mix of agricultural and non-agricultural opportunities to strengthen and build a sustainable food system for a community of generations is the focus of Picked!.
Picked! in Page Goals:
Improve how our community engages with fresh food systems
Increase community access to fresh food, food production and education
Establish Picked! as a hub for food education and support
Improve poor nutrition and poverty based eating habits - establish and encourage SNAP purchases for healthy food not “Dollar Store” food
Provide a learning lab for our youth - farm to business food opportunities. Heighten youth’s understanding of the challenges farmers face while teaching them how food is grown and transported and how to cook and eat healthfully and sustainably
Create social enterprise fresh food systems in the community - grow food with the help of the farming community to sell through the markets. Knowing that affordability is a challenge in community, focus on models for selling fresh food that work for both farmers and for low-income customers.
Support off-farm food-system activities - selling farm produce in a market, processing food products for consumption or sale, helping to run mobile market.
Educate canning and other cooking methods for retail sustainability
Work with community gardens and community (backyard) gardeners to provide excess produce for sale at markets - to sell and distribute fresh and prepared goods more efficiently for program sustainability
Develop a CSA type produce model for distribution to include an “assistance” concept like Buy One, Give One shares
Increase community awareness and drive purchases to Picked! produce markets
Use sustainable agriculture, youth leadership development, and educational opportunities help to remove food obstacles for communities
