By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

DETROIT, Mich. — USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan gave one of the keynote addresses at last week’s Making Good Food Work Conference in Detroit. The three-day conference at the Atheneum hotel revolved around idea-teams that focused on solving problems within the country’s food system.
“Southeast Michigan Food Hub” was one team, “Mobile Markets: An Urban Food Access Initiative” was another. Much of the conference was about how to get fresh fruits and vegetables to people in blighted urban areas; however, meat was on the menu, too.

“I was really excited by the roll-up-your-sleeves agenda,” Merrigan said. “We at the USDA are really eager to hear about the ideas and recommendations that come out of this conference.”

Merrigan said “local” is an up-and-coming thing, including at large grocery store chains. “Let’s be frank,” she said. “There are a lot of hurdles to overcome in building local and regional food systems. We’re really working on collaboration, coordination and innovation in our programs. I think we’re making some progress.”

Another problem is access to capital. Merrigan said there is $40 million “on the table” in the USDA’s value-added products grant program, but a match from the farmer is required, and this is sometimes a problem.

“Farmers can use some of their time for that match,” she explained.
Merrigan also said the “structure for meat” has lagged behind that for fruits and vegetables. She’s heard of farmers traveling eight hours to have their livestock slaughtered. One solution to that problem is changing zoning regulations, she said.

Distribution is also a problem as far as getting “good food” to poor urban areas is concerned. The answer, Merrigan said, are food hubs. Small farmers can use food hubs as drop-off and pickup points. She stated the USDA has helped 30 percent of the country’s food hubs and “we’re really excited that there’s so many more that have never knocked on our door.”

Merrigan said the “commitment to these issues comes from the very top of this administration.” She also said progress has been made with farm-to-school programs. Not that many years ago, there were only a handful; now, however, Merrigan said there are 2,000.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also spoke at the conference. Stabenow is the first senator from Michigan to chair the Senate Agriculture Committee in 120 years. She said the lack of grocery stores in Detroit is a problem.
“There’ve been discussions with the mayor and others in Detroit about bringing more green grocers into the city,” Stabenow said.

She said more announcements would be forthcoming on this subject. She also told the audience she is looking forward to “working with you on elements of the farm bill.”

Jess Daniel, the primary organizer of the conference, said last week the event was going well. She said she and other event organizers wanted to do something different with the conference this year. At last year’s conference a lot of information was shared, but it was “too superficial.”

This one, she said, gets down to the nitty gritty of “how you do things,” focusing on infrastructure, logistics and distribution. Daniel is a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University.