HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-13-24 Public Comment - B. Weed - How does the Bozeman City Commission, led by the Mayor, look ahead_From:Becky Weed
To:Agenda
Cc:billbryan1020@gmail.com; Jennifer Boyer
Subject:[EXTERNAL]How does the Bozeman City Commission, led by the Mayor, look ahead?
Date:Monday, February 12, 2024 10:02:15 PM
Attachments:FoodFilter.docx
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Dear Bozeman City Commission:
I am a Gallatin County resident who does not live in Bozeman, but I believe that all County residents have a
stake in the meeting that you just held. (I am a Belgrade resident, living equidistant from the centers of
Bozeman and Belgrade.) Conversely the city residents and leaders have a stake in County perceptions of
the City’s vision. Thank you for making the meeting open to the public.
I am not commenting on the particulars of the meeting, but rather suggesting one possible response to the
question in the subject line of this email, “How does the City Commission, led by the Mayor, look, and
move, forward?” The series of events and foment leading up to this meeting are difficult, but also
potentially culminate in a positive turning point for Bozeman and beyond. That’s why I’m writing.
On the day that Terry Cunningham was sworn in as mayor, I heard him quoted on the radio as I drove from
a meeting in Bozeman back to my home at Thirteen Mile Farm, saying the he looked forward to posing a
vision for this town as Mayor and then working hard with everyone to achieve it. I hope that above all,
amidst the uncomfortable, oxygen-sucking turmoil of the 17-miniute video, you do not let go of
that aspiration. It is a metaphor for what we all must do as citizens in a troubled world. In that spirit, I am
attaching an informal document that I recently drafted that might help set the tone for what this City could
inspire, even though I am an outsider, a mere farmer in Belgrade. Ironically, this was a document that I was
partway through when I received an invitation with a Bozeman team (led by two staff and two consultants)
to attend a series of meetings constructed to help “map the city’s food system”. That invitation led me
to accelerate my draft with a City of Bozeman focus, even though the city’s agenda is only a part of what is
on my mind.
Nothing about this is complete or polished, but that is why I hope to engage with you now, while the works-
in-progress are vital and dynamic. . I believe that the notion of screening all our decision-making though
the lens of food resilience could be the glue that binds this community back together in the face of too many
divisive and stagnant habits….local, regional, national. The lens of food by no means can or should
displace all the many complex and important items that a city must contend with. To the contrary, it could
help us forge a more unified vision of the major issues that food systems reflect ….climate change, public
health, immigration challenges, geopolitical instability, and so on. Or, at a minimum, it might simply
serve as a straw man to help you build a vision for Bozeman.
IF you would like to talk about some specific ideas I have about objectives that the City of Bozeman
could help advance, please let me know. In the meantime, I am working with other private citizens to help
organize this draft and identify players for the many open niches, and to empower those who already have
this work underway.
It seems ridiculously presumptuous, but a document is attached, and others can provide more background as
needed.
For reference, Jennifer Madgic, Bill Bryan (who spoke at your meeting) and County Commissioners
Jennifer Boyer and Zach Brown know me.
Sincerely,
Becky Weed
Thirteen Mile Farm
13000 Springhill Road
Belgrade, MT. 59714
406-581-8543
This is not a formal document; it’s more like a spillover. i.e, probably not good for
public consumption, but could be used to infect a community of ideas.
What Does Success Look Like?
The following is a draft response to the question, “What does success look
like?” if we seek to build a food system that prioritizes local health and re-
silience. The definition of local can and should zoom in or out to include
neighborhood/county/state/ or regional boundaries for different parts or
settings of this discussion, but the guiding principles remain steady. They
include:
• The focus on local is not meant to be a selfish or exclusionary framework.
To the contrary, we recognize that in an increasingly volatile world, it is
pragmatic and ethical to take responsibility for local needs and capacities
that we can identify and influence, even if our ultimate aim is to be citizens
in a just, global society. This is true whether the volatility stems from cli-
mate, geopolitics or other forces buffeting us.
• Whatever systems we build need to incorporate principles of ecosystem
health, and the vitality of biodiversity, in humans and other biological
communities, from soil on up. Like it or not, Earth is ultimate arbiter.
• Government is only one component of the participation needed to
achieve success, and it can only function well if citizens are engaged.
• In the 1950s Montana produced ~85% of its own food, and imported only
~15%. Currently Montana relies on imports for ~90% of its food, and
produces~10% of what it consumes. (This in spite of large exports of
some commodities). Our reliance on California and a few other states for
many components of our diets will not be robust in the long haul, and in-
dustrialization of those supplies is already compromising quality and fair
labor practices. We need to turn the import:export ratio upside-down
again. Not because trade is bad, but because resilience is healthy.
• Building a vibrant food system is a tool for economic health, in the best
and broadest sense of the word, economy.
This is undoubtedly an incomplete draft. Let it be a straw man that we
can modify and find all our diverse niches within.
Key elements of success are:
1 Growing number of farmers and farms of different sizes;
2 Farms are resilient, adapting to ongoing climate shifts;
3 Local, sustainably-grown food is a priority for purposes of resilience
and health, imports/exports are not prohibited, but are not primary;
4 Food tastes good, and is nutritious;
5 Farmers and all citizens understand that healthy ecosystems, includ-
ing soils, water, air and biodiversity within and beyond the farm gate
are foundational to vibrant food systems. Farm practices reflect this;
6 Citizens know how to prepare and enjoy locally grown food;
7 Citizens understand that healthy food is foundational to personal
and public health;
8 Distribution and processing networks enable year-round food access.
and aim for minimal processing;
9 Farmers and processors know each other and collaborate to build and
meet growing demand for local food;
10 Finance system includes a network of diverse public/private tools;
11 Montana institutions have access to and promote Montana-grown
healthy and tasty food (schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.);
12 Montana’s education, recreation, governance and investment cultures
value access to healthy, local food for all, and will innovate to do so;
13 Farming is a respected occupation with fair wages;
14 Farming as part-time job or productive hobby for recreation and re-
silience is also a respected and enjoyable part of local culture; this
will include hunting and foraging to the extent ecosystems allow;
15 Diverse ownership structures constitute farm economy;
16 Pathways to farm ownership are available for those who want it;
17 Farm infrastructure is improving as demand grows;
18 Government policies enable a healthy farm and food system; this will
require integration of the guiding principles above into zoning policy
and enforcement, infrastructure development; social services; taxa-
tion policies; local/state interaction, tribal relations, conservation pol-
icy, public health regulation, and so on.
What is needed to achieve these elements of success?
Everyone who enters the realm of food systems change identifies with dif-
ferent portals of entry, including the entryways of:
1. Food Production: farmers, ranchers, gardeners, farm infrastructure
builders;
2. Food Purveyors: stores, restaurants, farmers markets, on-line and on-
farm sales;
3. Processors: local, statewide, regional;
4. Distributors: local, statewide, regional;
5. Landowners;
6. Land Trusts;
7. Community Finance and Investment;
8. Government and Regulation: city, county, state and other;
9. Tribal communities;
10. Educators: pre-school through higher education, including non-
school venues, and farm-to-school partners;
11. Food Bank network and affiliated food security partners;
12. Health care and wellness workers;
13. Eaters.
Everyone can find a niche in this assemblage, usually more than one. This
guarantees that food system development is not a linear process amenable
to top-down edicts, but it is amenable to community involvement through
a range of skills, social, and financial commitments. Food systems trans-
cend partisan boundaries and other divisions among us. They reveal op-
portunities and challenges for developing resilience in volatile times.
Not everyone agrees on how stark the imperative for change really is.
Some of us see evidence that our current supply chain, dominated by im-
ports from a few states in the West and Midwest, is extremely vulnerable to
climate and other versions of volatility. Others see monopolistic practices
across several sectors as the core driver of vulnerability (seeds, crops, meat,
grocery chains)* Some disruptions to food security are already underway
and show ample signs of worsening in coming decades.** The recent pan-
demic exposed the supply chain fragility, but the seemingly rapid post-
pandemic recovery diffuses the alarm in many peoples’ eyes. Similarly, the
anomalous prosperity of the Gallatin Valley masks underlying insecurity
for all of us, privileged or not. Regardless of where you stand along that
spectrum of concern, it is indisputable that even the status quo in our food
system embodies inequity and instability, despite the current abundance in
most American grocery stores. The bottom line is, we do not all share ex-
actly the same sense of urgency. Even within ourselves as individuals,
many of us vacillate between panic, inspired action, simmering worry, pos-
itive micro-steps, and peculiar complacency in order to make it through
our daily lives. That is probably part of human nature. Author John Val-
liant calls it a “cognitive glitch in homo sapiens”. In any case, a combina-
tion of rapid and slow change is probably what is needed, what is feasible,
and what is already underway. The question is, how can we find and coor-
dinate our numerous, diverse niches in that complicated fabric, and who
can lead the overall change?
I don’t know who or what can lead it, but if we are to figure that out, we
need something akin to a common vision of what we want in our food sys-
tem. That won’t emerge from one person or one institution, and neither
Government nor the private sector will succeed alone.
Within the last year, the City of Bozeman tasked a group of staff and con-
sultants to map out our local food system in the context of preexisting City
efforts to build a “climate smart” Bozeman. That group has been survey-
ing a wide array of people. This comes on the heels of a few decades of di-
verse private and public sector projects in Bozeman and around the state
and the world to understand and improve food systems; there is a substan-
tial pool of experience to draw from. To see if we can all nudge ourselves
in a common direction, it might be useful to ask, in one document,
whether and how the city and private sectors (for-profit and non-profit)
can move us toward a pragmatic framework for a healthier system, even if
it’s not a comprehensive plan.
[Here are some primitive notes to jumpstart the thinking. Each recommendation
below need to be tweaked to fit the public/private lenses but merging them here
shows how essential collaboration will be. Some of these recommendations will
likely sound very general, vague, or even off-target. Particular relevant examples
of actions or comments are inserted in italics to help illustrate the ideas. This ini-
tial listing is not sorted according to which problem each recommendation ad-
dresses, e.g. land access, a commodity-dominated food economy, rapid population
growth in Montana, income inequality, and so forth. That is both confusing and
intentional; it illustrates how intertwined our problems and opportunities are .]
What can the City do? / What can the private sector do?
• Filter every decision through local and regional food security lens; this is
not meant to displace the diverse and wonderful passions that constitute our
community, everything from school sports to the arts to wilderness advocacy to
health care….it only illustrates that we will undermine everything if we don't
plan for that one thing….the food system…to be as good as it can be. Everything
from water-resource development, zoning, road design and other city-county in-
frastructure develop will influence our capacity for resilience in the food realm,
by default or design. Our choice.
• Build on existing collaborations with food resilience in mind; e.g. HRDC,
MFBN, Bozeman Health, etc.)
• Develop a clearinghouse of information on who is doing what; to help peo-
ple identify their own niche, to avoid reinventing wheels or stepping on each oth-
ers’ toes, to help identify missing tasks and resource needs, etc.
• Build relationships with neighboring County and town governments and
businesses with the food filter in mind; Belgrade/Bozeman and the County
recently held an interdisciplinary meeting with consultants from the Urban
Lands Institute. Revisit that recording and impose a food filter on it; we won’t
significantly develop food resilience if we don’t cross those boundaries.
• Don’t assume that linearly decreasing density from the center-of-city
outward is always best for local resilience; just listen to the recent Bo-
zeman uproar about top-down zoning interpretations and declarations. Revisit
the whole controversy through a food filter, and include more than lawyers in the
discussion.
• Work to protect and/or change zoning laws in a way that builds and al-
lows for future for urban and other local agriculture, local food security,
generational shifts the economy, in transportation, in cultural expecta-
tions, etc.); in other words, don’t assume that our current trajectory of popula-
tion and income is permanent, or even very long. This doesn’t mean that we
have to predict catastrophe; it only means that we are likely to improve quality of
life for everyone if start immediately to put the well-being of “essential workers”
and everybodys’ children higher in the decision-making framework. In the long
run, that will help the affluent folks too.
• Consider current litigation regarding state vs. local control on develop-
ment in light of food system decision-making; the merits and demerits of
‘both sides’ are not always trivial to identify, unravel and reform. Assemble an
interdisciplinary team of food filter volunteers to understand and perhaps advo-
cate in this realm.
• Expand vocabulary of what kinds of development could take place if the
city sought out different developers rather than waited to see what pro-
posals show up on the planning desks; Land trust personnel in Montana are
already tuned in to a lot of such information inside and outside Montana. Could
a team of volunteers build on this and help educate local government about what
is possible? Peter Brown, formerly of GVLT, and community land trust folk in
Missoula are both MT resources on they front, and there are others.
• Interview local business people that may have learned from their suc-
cesses and failures about what has worked, what has failed,, and what
they want now that they see Bozeman changing: for e.g., Patrick Kainz of
MAP brewery once began designing a development south of Bozeman that
would have included ag land for a CSA, dense housing, and wild edges. He even
hired an architect and landscape designer. Im sure he had good reasons for
aborting that mission. Let’s explore that history, and consider taking the ideas
seriously elsewhere in our community.
• Question and contradict old stereotypes about the the ag economy and
the urban-rural divide where evidence and opportunity demand it; for ex-
ample, > 10 years ago the Gallatin County Commissioners travelled to Fort Col-
lins, CO to learn about the Larimer County experience with rapid development.
One commissioner/extension agent said to G.County Commissioner Bill Mur-
doch, “Whatever you do, don’t let your county suffer death by agriculture”. I in-
terpret that remark to mean that extension agent perceived agriculture only
through the eyes of older, tired, end-of-career commodity farmers who saw their
land’s future only through the conventions of subdivision growth and a hunger
for a retirement fund, because their farms hadn’t been able to build that legacy
through ag. Lets not let our gov’t leaders and farmers suffer from such a failure
of imagination. Some of that has already happened, but its not too late to learn
from mistakes.
• Integrate affordable housing into every use of the food filter: Start by
ditching the term “Workforce Housing” and return to “Affordable Housing”, a
term that categorizes bricks and boards, rather than human beings. Farm-afilli-
ated housing could be one subset, but other clustered housing strategies are
equally relevant. Research innovations that are underway elsewhere, for exam-
ple in Maine a group of people have designed 3D-printed affordable, attractive
homes with energy-efficient, creative shapes made from by-products of Maine’s
forestry industry… Could MT learn from that? Farms need owners and em-
ployees who have a home, on or near their work. From another perspective, res-
urrect gardening as an integral consideration of what we mean by housing.
Maybe the oceans of lawns in Gallatin Valley’s existing sprawl could provide
some retroactive assistance to the food filter.
• Launch and support existing entrepreneurial projects in the production,
processing and distribution realms of our local food system; Jeremy Nad-
ison and Emily Wolfe are in the throes of planning a podcast series to explore
and publicize business components that could be profitable engines for building
the food system….and related matters. Tune in, provide input, ask questions.
• Consider restructuring fees and zoning regulations to incentivize or at
least stop inhibiting local food resilience; make Farmers’ Market participa-
tion less costly for new farmers by finding ways to subsidize fees. Explore re-
strictions or revisions of Homeowner association covenants or other regulations
that impair local food development. Reevaluate all zoning regulations in light of
the food filter, and foster a youth-led community movement to turn this into a
positive campaign rather than a reflexive partisan harangue.
• Support food-relevant education at all levels while thinking carefully
about what is best done in the public and private sectors; this covers a lot:
cooking with local food, nutrition, health, farming and ranching; pre-K through
12++ ; it could infiltrate almost every discipline in our schools and elsewhere;
Matt and Jacy Rothschiller have already integrated education programs into
much of their farm operation…Find ways to support their leadership and en-
courage others to develop their own different versions of on- and off-farm food
and ag education.
• Ask everyone to make their own wishlist of what they would like to see
in their neighborhood with the food filter in mind; Here’s mine: I hope we
can build on the community of farmers that has started to nucleate around two of
the oldest homesteads in the valley (now Amaltheia, Thirteen Mile, Kokoro,
Three Seed Farm, Rathvinden) in the Reese Creek area. We still have affordable
housing and other infrastructure issues to address, and a neighboring piece of
land that would be excellent for growth and education if there was financial help,
but the ideas, food, and commerce are underway. Other neighborhoods could
build their own versions of embryonic projects, each with its own site-specific
strengths and weaknesses. Community nuclei of off-grid energy centers could
increase the resilience of each of these neighborhoods.
• Place new farmer recruitment high on the list of priorities,, while recog-
nizing that it can only happen as fast as the support system allows: the
Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems program (SFBS), and the Indigenous
Food Program at MSU are inoculants, but community partners will be neces-
sary to achieve results after graduation. Last Fall in Mary Stein’s Capstone
class in SFBS, only 1 or 2 out ~30 seniors said they planned to farm after gradu-
ation, but when the question was flipped to ask “how many of you would farm if
the barriers to entry weren’t so overwhelming?” ~75%+ raised their hands.
That group of student then turned their Capstone project into a research effort on
Land Access for farming in the Gallatin Valley. As one part of their research,
they surveyed students in the natural-resource-related departments and found
essentially the same result. Our problem is not lack of interest.
• Could the current and future mayors pursue this food-filtered thinking?
Their interest, and leadership could prove important, even vital. They will need
help.
• Launch a Community Investment Strategy that funnels a portion of exist-
ing local wealth toward food and farming resilience: A group of farmers
has already begun to lay out some foundational ideas for this mindset (see RIFF -
Resilience Innovation in Farming and Food) but needs to light a fire under itself.
Convene a group of conventional local investors (DA Davidson, Edward Jones,
etc. to do some brainstorm about how to set this up and publicize… Ideas about a
“Food Fund” have been floating around this valley for years, but key decision-
making about how to administer it, and how to prioritize projects must advance
before it can become real. Or is that even the right tool? Of course the Gallatin
Valley has already demonstrated substantial related philanthropy in this realm
(Food Bank-Warming Center-Fork and Spoon, restaurant-farmer collaborations,
etc etc.). All that’s missing is the reframing of the term Food Security…its an
issue for everyone, not a segregated ‘other’ group.
Note: Only a fraction of this list is suitable for public sector initiatives; I doubt
we’d want the government to take on too much even if that was financially feasible.
Furthermore, this list is only a small fraction of the ideas that have already been
discussed inside and outside this valley by food-interested farmers and citizens.
Rather than be overwhelmed by that, we perhaps should see in it the ingredients of
a movement, in which farmers and sometimes government entities are merely the
catalysts. Sometimes the most important government tasks will be to figure out
how to get out of the way; sometimes officials will work to change and implement
laws in innovative new directions; and sometimes they will help inspire a move-
ment by filtering mundane government day-to-day decisions through the food fil-
ter.