Roseland Food Security Network

Roseland Food Security Network (RSFN) - Seguridad Alimentaria para Roseland ---This is a program of food empowerment, to help people in low-income local neighborhoods to purchase pesticide-free and GMO-free food from local growers and retailers. It also encourages the growth of local sources of GMO/pesticide-free produce.

The premise of the program is that low-income families in predominantly Latino neighborhoods such as Roseland have the least access to foods that are GMO & pesticide free. Sustainably grown food is too often priced out of the reach of these families, and is mostly unavailable in their neighborhood food markets. At the same time, some of their neighbors have turned their lots into small farms, using sustainable gardening practices to grow food for local consumption.

The more these local growers and families can have access to each other, and the more local families can become educated about the nutritional benefits of GMO/pesticide free food, the better the nutrition benefits will be for those families.

A big piece of the solution to food empowerment is simply purchasing power.

We propose to do this by allowing organic food consumers to purchase Food Empowerment Certificates and/or Produce Shares, which will assist Roseland families to purchase or obtain boxes of local produce. The purchaser will in turn receive a certificate, paid for from the fund of donations, and exchange that certificate for a box of produce. The disbursement of the certificates will be accompanied by a brief educational presentation about food safety, and the benefits of sustainably grown food.

The cash value of that certificate will be equal to the grower's price for the produce box, and the cash itself will be given to the grower to complete the local purchase.

Initially we will run a pilot program funded by small seed-money donations. A few hundred dollars would allow us to try this out in a local school, and develop a workable approach.

Eventually, we want to advance the concept of the FEED Certificates (Food Empowerment Education Certificates), which can be purchased under a concept similar to carbon credits in the Renewable Energy world. If you consume some energy and want to offset that, you can purchase a credit. If you consume some non-GMO, pesticide-free food and want to contribute to someone else's opportunity to make the same choice, you can purchase a FEED Certificate.