Teams will develop pilot projects to spread interest in organic foods
Harry Bennett of Marion is one of 10 Kansans who has been selected to take part in May in an exchange program with 10 delegates from Japan.
Bennett will represent the Kansas Organic Producers Association and the Kansas Rural Center (KRC).
KRC recently received a monetary award from The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership of New York and Tokyo to fund a project entitled, “Nurturing Communities Through Local Foods Networks.”
The project seeks to develop innovative responses to problems in modern food systems through cross-cultural dialogues between farmers, national growers organizations, and policy makers in two agricultural heartlands: The Kansas River Valley, centered in Douglas County, and Saitama Prefecture in Japan, northwest of Tokyo.
Cooperating entities in Kansas include Kansas State University, the University of Kansas, Kansas Organic Producers, The Community Mercantile Education Foundation, The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, Van Go Mobile Arts and Jobs in the Art Make Sense, and the Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance.
The 10 Kansans and 10 Japanese will join together in late spring for reciprocal fact-finding visits between the two countries.
During that time, public programs in Lawrence and Saitama, Japan, will introduce the project and its goals to local residents.
Following the visits, each team will gather to strategize and develop pilot projects to spread interest in organic, locally-produced foods in their respective communities. An interactive web site will publicize events and track the progress of the projects.
Scholarly studies have addressed concerns about declining rural communities and the low rate of food self-sufficiency. The project’s goal is to not only shed light on common problems but, more importantly, suggest solutions applicable not only to these areas but others in the developed world.
In particular, the two teams will be exploring ways to promote interest in smaller-scale, organic farming and the establishment of personal relationships between food producers and consumers.
Project co-directors from Kansas are Patricia Graham, a research associate in the Center for East Asian Studies at KU, and Dan Nagengast, director of the Kansas Rural Center (nagengast@earthlink.net).
Japanese co-directors are Sakoko Miyoshi, of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and Takao Shibata, the former Consul-General of Japan for Kansas City.
For further information, contract Graham by e-mail at pgraham@ku.edu or by phone at 785-841-1477.