Executive Director´s Corner
By Jim Tischer

This past spring was an exciting time in CAFF´s evolution. After beginning our combined board/staff/member strategic planning group work last fall, I am pleased to report that CAFF´s board of directors ratified Strategic Plan 2005 on May 18, 2001 meeting, thus affirming our new goals and mission.
CAFF is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to building a powerful alliance between our urban and agricultural members. We are convinced that this alliance will be a major force in strengthening family-scale agriculture that cares for the land, sustains local economies and promotes social justice.
CAFF adopted four goals in our strategic plan.

Goal 1. Mobilize a broad constituency to make the food and farming system more sustainable.
Our message must reach a broad audience to make progress in sustainable agriculture. CAFF will continue to develop a language and explicit value system that goes beyond a relatively small group of progressive farmers and urban food activists. The farmer-consumer convergence is well demonstrated in the ˜Food Ethic˜ written by Judith Redmond and Thomas Nelson and published in the spring 2001 Agrarian Advocate.
CAFF has a grassroots presence in several regions. Activities and issue engagement differs from area to area. In the upcoming years, in addition to expanding our current regions, we plan to increase our presence in urban areas to include the San Francisco Bay Area and southern California. Activities will be based around developing the locally controlled food system and support for biological farming. Strategic Plan 2005 calls for a more explicit activist strategy to guide CAFF´s work in these issue areas in the future.

Goal 2. Make sustainability a core principal in all food and agriculture policy.
CAFF´s public affairs program maintains a strong presence in Sacramento that is credible because of our activist membership in various critical regions and swing districts. CAFF will continue to build bridges between urban environmentalists, consumers and farmers that seeks to define and expand common goals including institutional and policy support for biological agriculture and economic viability of family-scale farmers.

Goal 3. Develop and implement locally controlled market options that increase the farmer´s share of the food dollar and expand public access to family farm products.
In our strategic planning process, we attempted to identify leverage points for achieving our overall goal of engaging a broad-based movement for change. We identified issues around food and economic pressures facing independent farmers, as some of the most important areas in which action was needed and success might be realized.

Goal 4. Build CAFF to be efficient and effective in pursuit of its mission
To successfully carry out our new goals, CAFF must build its capacity as an organization. We have developed a plan for staff training to increase staff expertise in critical areas and to develop additional leadership for our vision.
Currently a board/staff transition team is writing the Implementation Plan for Strategic Plan 2005. We seek to craft a comprehensive, living document that will inform, and guide us while enabling CAFF to seek partners, collaborators and funding to carry out our vision during the next three years. The Implementation Plan and budget will be presented to the board of directors for approval at the November board meeting.
We plan to make food ethic and strategic plan presentations to each core region and Lighthouse Farm Network group during September and October. Check our Website www.caff.org regularly for presentation schedules and updates. As a CAFF member, your input, energy and intellect are essential if we are to move forward aggressively and change the food system. As a final note, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all present and past CAFF board members, present and past staff, agency partners, foundation partners, survey respondents, stakeholders and others who had a hand in developing CAFF´s Strategic Plan 2005. We truly could not have achieved the result without your help. Particular thanks go to my esteemed predecessor, Judith Redmond, for her help and energy in
Look for regular discussion and updates regarding Strategic Plan 2005 in all CAFF communications mediums Ð Agrarian Advocate, Farmer to Farmer, Website, research reports and issue papers.