North Iowa Local Food Coalition

Purpose

The North Iowa Local Food Coalition serves as a broad-based effort to help identify and connect relationships, technical, business, and communication assets of local and regional food system development that improves the health, economic, and environmental sustainability of producers and communities in North Iowa. The Coalition meets quarterly, is coordinated by Healthy Harvest of North Iowa, and is a participant in the Iowa State University Community Food System Program.

Mission

The North Iowa Local Food Coalition brings people in Cerro Gordo, Franklin, Floyd, Hancock, Kossuth, Mitchell, Winnebago, Worth and Wright counties together to make our region a place where production of and access to healthy, locally grown foods supports community health, a thriving economy and sustainability.

Top Identified Priority Projects:

Community Gardens
Farm to School
Farmers Market Support
Food Waste & Recovery

Partner Coalitions

Regional Food System Working Group
Iowa Food System Coalition
North Iowans Against Hunger Coalition

Meeting Resources

Explore the articles and recordings from our recent quarterly meetings that highlight our priority projects.

North Iowa Local Food Coalition – Spring Quarterly Meeting 2024

At the North Iowa Local Food Coalition's quarterly meeting in June, attendees had the opportunity to tour [...]

SILT Presentation North Iowa Local Food Coalition Quarterly Meeting – March 2024

Zach Cassidy from Sustainable Iowa Land Trust joined our Quarterly NILFC Meeting in March to talk about [...]

Shelene Codner, Iowa Waste Exchange on Food Waste in Iowa

Food Waste & Recovery is one of the four priority project areas that our North Iowa Local [...]

Visit our YouTube channel’s Coalition playlist for a full suite of recordings from recent meetings.

Review 2015 Health & Food Assessment

2024 Quarterly Meeting Schedule

March 5th
June 5th in Charles City
September 18th in Clear Lake
December 3rd via Zoom

Check out Our Facebook Page under the events tab as meeting registration becomes available.

In the News

Serving farm fresh food in schools is getting big federal support — but will 'farm to school' stick?

Rae Solomon - Special to Harvest Public Media

The Farm-to-School movement is out to revolutionize the humble school lunch with food grown on local farms. But the path from cropland to cafeteria is full of complicated twists and turns. A new wave of federal funding is trying to smooth the way.

READ THE ARTICLE

Bridging the Gap from Farm to Table

Andrea Love - dsm Magazine

Even though more than 85% of Iowa land is used for farming, most of us can’t really pinpoint where our meat, produce and dairy products are actually produced. About 90% of the food in our grocery stores comes from out of state, according to Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

Healthy Harvest of North Iowa is working to change that.