How Can We Fix Our Broken Food System? Start With the Base of the Supply Chain
by Don Shaffer
Originally published on TriplePundit
Social equity in the food supply chain was a strong thread running through the annual Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders forum this June in Denver. If we’re going to fix our broken food system so that it delivers healthy food to the whole population while enabling farmers to make a decent living, we’ll need new models and alternatives across the entire supply chain.
The most potentially transformative enterprises, however, often face the greatest funding hurdles. The forum’s theme, “Stronger Together,” reflects a growing recognition that collaborative funding strategies involving investors, foundations and communities are essential to getting these types of enterprises off the ground.
We know this approach can work. A growing number of social enterprises supported by what we call ‘integrated capital’ are successfully addressing problems related to food production, processing, aggregation and distribution in ways that contribute to social equity and agricultural sustainability. They’re flying under the media radar, but they’re worth examining as models for the field.
Image Credit: Triple Pundit
Don Shaffer is President & CEO at RSF Social Finance
