Resources

Local Organizations

The Accokeek Foundation

The Accokeek Foundation stewards 200 acres of Piscataway Park, a national park located in Accokeek, MD, on the shore of the Potomac River directly across from Mount Vernon. The land serves as an outdoor classroom for the foundation's educational programs, research and agricultural and conservation projects. The park is open to the public year-round.

Brain Food
Brain Food uses food in a fun and creative setting to build life skills in youth. Through culinary-related activities, the organization promotes active learning, self-reliance and healthy living to empower youth in their communities.

Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB)
CAFB is the largest, public nonprofit hunger and nutrition education resource in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Each year CAFB distributes 20 million pounds of food, including 6 million pounds of fresh produce through over 700 member agencies. In addition to food distribution, CAFB has several community-building initiatives including Kids Café, Food for Kids, Face Hunger, The Anacostia Farmers' Market, From the Ground Up, Sister Hook-Up, Produce for People, the Brown Bag Program and others.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF)
CBF is the only independent 501(c)3 organization dedicated solely to restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. The foundation's vision is that the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers, broadly recognized as a national treasure, will become highly productive and be in good health as measured by water clarity, lack of toxic contaminants, and abundance of natural filters in the water and on the land.

Future Harvest
Future Harvest-CASA is a network of farmers, agricultural professionals, landowners and consumers living and working in the Chesapeake region. Future Harvest-CASA promotes profitable, environmentally sound and socially acceptable food and farming systems that work to sustain communities.

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
This interdisciplinary center promotes research and develops and communicates information about the complex interrelationships among diet, food production, environment and human health. The center's goals are to advance an ecological perspective in reducing threats to the health of the public and to promote policies that protect health, the global environment and the ability to sustain life for future generations.

National Capital Farms
The National Capital Farms network is a project of the Metropolitan Washington Regional Agricultural Workgroup. The Regional Agricultural Workgroup aims to protect and promote agriculture in the Washington Metropolitan Area by investigating potential approaches for sustaining an economically viable regional agricultural system through better support of farms, farmers, farm activities and programs and marketing of local agricultural products in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA)
PASA is a nonprofit organization working to improve the economic and social prosperity of Pennsylvania food and agriculture. The organization works with the farmers that grow food, the consumers that eat the food, and those concerned with the ecological well-being of our environment and natural resources.

Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative
TOG took root in 1988 when a group of neighboring organic fruit and vegetable farmers discussed the possibility of joining forces in the marketing of their products. By working together, they could coordinate crop production to complement one another rather than compete. And they could enjoy economies of scale in shipping and selling. The cooperative form of business fit the farmers' needs, allowing ownership and market access to be divided fairly and decisions to be made jointly. Through cooperation, the growers were also able to serve their customers better, by providing a diversity of crops and a level of service that no one grower could provide on his own and we've been buying thier produce and delivering it to you since 1994!

Virginia Association for Biological Farming
This nonprofit, educational organization is dedicated to the vision of a sustainable food and fiber system that will maintain healthy soil, clean water and thriving ecosystems, while providing quality products for consumers and economic security for farmers and rural communities.

Youth Garden at the Arboretum
The Washington Youth Garden sows the seeds of interest in gardening, horticulture and environmental issues during the school year with carefully designed lessons and activities that are delivered in the classrooms of several schools in the Washington, DC area. The children who participate in these activities are in grades 3, 4 and 5. When spring arrives, students who have developed a strong interest in the program begin planting their own small garden plot in the Youth Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum.

Sustainable Food and Agriculture

National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA)
ATTRA was created by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and is funded under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Business-Cooperative Service. The service provides information and other technical assistance to farmers, ranchers, extension agents, educators, and others involved in sustainable agriculture in the U.S.

The Rodale Institute
The Rodale Institute works with people around the world to achieve a regenerative food system that renews environmental and human health. The institute's philosophy is Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People.

Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NESARE) and Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (Southern SARE)
Since 1988, the SARE program has helped advance farming systems that are profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities through a nationwide research and education grants program. The program, part of the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, funds projects and conducts outreach designed to improve agricultural systems.

USDA National Organic Program (NOP)
NOP developed national organic standards and established an organic-certification program based on recommendations of the 15-member National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Members of the NOSB are appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and are representatives from the following categories: farmer/grower; handler/processor; retailer; consumer/public interest; environmentalist; scientist; and certifying agent. The NOP is a marketing program housed within the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service.

Food Accessibility, Safety and Policy

Center for Food Safety
The Center for Food Safety works to protect human health and the environment by curbing the proliferation of harmful food-production technologies and by promoting organic, and other forms of sustainable, agriculture.

Community Food Security Coalition
The Community Food Security Coalition is dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times. The coalition seeks to develop community self-reliance in obtaining food and to create a system of growing, manufacturing, processing, making available, and selling food that is regionally based and grounded in the principles of justice, democracy and sustainability.

Environmental Working Group

Environmental Working Group's team of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers pores over government data, legal documents, scientific studies and its own laboratory tests to expose threats to health and the environment and to find solutions.

Share Our Strength
Since 1984, Share Our Strength has inspired and organized individuals and businesses to share their strengths. Share Our Strength maintains that years of public and private progress have put the goal of ending childhood hunger within our grasp. The program's strategy is to surround every child with nutritious food in the places they live, learn, play and pray. To do this they work with local organizations to help families help themselves in 3 important areas: increasing access to the public and private programs that can provide food to those who need it, strengthening the community infrastructure for getting healthy food to children and teaching families how to get the most nutrition out of a limited budget.

World Hunger Year (WHY)
WHY is a leading advocate for innovative, community-based solutions to hunger and poverty. WHY challenges society to confront these problems by advancing models that create self-reliance, economic justice and equal access to nutritious and affordable food.

Food Traditions and Preservation

Southern Foodways Alliance

American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is a pioneer organization in the U.S., working to conserve historic breeds and genetic diversity in livestock, including asses, cattle, goats, horses, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys.

Chef's Collaborative
Chef's Collaborative is a national member network of those in the culinary community and beyond, who promote sustainable cuisine by celebrating the joys of local, seasonal, and artisinal cooking.

Food Routes Network (FRN)
FRN is a national nonprofit organization that provides communications tools, technical support, networking and information resources to organizations nationwide that are working to rebuild local, community-based food systems. FRN is dedicated to reintroducing Americans to their food—the seeds it grows from, the farmers who produce it and the routes that carry it from the fields to their tables.

Rural Coalition
The Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural is an alliance of regionally and culturally diverse organizations working to build a more just and sustainable food system that does the following: brings fair returns to minority and other small farmers and rural communities; ensures just and fair working conditions for farm workers; protects the environment; and delivers safe and healthy food to consumers.

Slow Food USA
Slow Food USA recognizes that the enjoyment of wholesome food is essential to the pursuit of happiness. The educational organization is dedicated to stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; to the revival of the kitchen and the table as centers of pleasure, culture and community; to the invigoration and proliferation of regional, seasonal culinary traditions; to the creation of a collaborative, ecologically oriented, and virtuous globalization; and to a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life.

Sustainable Table
Sustainable Table celebrates the sustainable food movement, educates consumers on food-related issues and works to build community through food. The program is home to the Eat Well Guide, an online directory of sustainable products in the U.S. and Canada, and to the critically acclaimed Meatrix movies.

National and International Organizations

American Institute of Food and Wine
The American Institute of Wine & Food is one of the few national organizations with both dedicated wine and food enthusiasts and professionals. Wine and food enthusiasts get to meet and learn from renowned chefs, winemakers, authors, culinary historians and food producers, while industry professionals have the opportunity to know and understand their core consumers.

Oldways Food Issues Think Tank
Oldways carries out aggressive education programs to help consumers make wise choices about eating, drinking, lifestyle and the traditional pleasures of the table. The programs embrace sound principles of nutrition, sustainable farming, balance and managing choices. Widely respected as the nonprofit "food issues think tank," Oldways pioneered in translating the complex details of nutrition science into the familiar language of food. This synthesis converts high-level science into a consumer-friendly health-promotion tool for consumers, health professionals, chefs, farmers, journalists and the food industry.

Produce for Better Health Foundation (5 a Day)
The Produce for Better Health Foundation has been on a mission for the last decade to improve our nation's health. The foundation has educated Americans, promoted produce and increased consumption levels of fruits and vegetables. They are currently focusing on the power of colorful fruits and vegetables to promote good health and boost produce sales.

Save Our Environment
Save Our Environment is a collaborative effort of some of the nation's most influential environmental advocacy organizations. The organization uses the Internet to increase public awareness and activism on today's most important environmental issues.

The Soil Association
The Soil Association was founded in 1946 by a group of farmers, scientists and nutritionists who observed a direct connection between farming practice and plant, animal, human and environmental health. The Soil Association is the UK's leading campaigning and certification organization for organic food and farming.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (USC)
UCS is a leading science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices and consumer choices.