Draft Report from the Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force

Dear Local Farm and Food Colleague - As promised a few weeks ago, attached is the Draft Report from the Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force. This is only the body of the report (no appendices) and is 33 pages long. We hope that you will have time to review it, to respond to the questions (attached), and to return your comments to us no later than Friday, December 12, 2008. We apologize for the short review period, but the process is taking longer than thought and our work must be completed shortly to meet the Illinois Department of Agriculture's and next year's legislative deadlines. Send your comments to: Debbie Hillman and Jim Braun DLHillman@sbcglobal.net jbraun2525@yahoo.com This has been a two-year process begun October 2006 when State Rep. Julie Hamos agreed to write a piece of legislation to reflect the broad interests of Illinois' local farm and food movement. HB1300, the Illinois Food, Farms, and Jobs Act, was entered into the General Assembly in February 2007 and was passed unanimously that June. We have attached the complete bill (2 pages only) so you can frame your comments within that context if that is helpful. The Task Force was appointed by the Governor in December 2007 and has been meeting since January 30, 2008. Our goal is to present the General Assembly policy and funding recommendations that will actually jump-start a fully-functioning Illinois farm and food system. The Report provides the background for the Recommendations. Once the report is complete, Rep. Hamos will draft legislation for next year's General Assembly to, hopefully, implement the Task Force recommendations in Section VII of the Report. If you wish to review any aspects of the Task Force process over the last 8 months, you can see the membership, meeting minutes, committee reports, etc., on the Illinois Department of Agriculture website. http://www.agr.state.il.us/marketing/Mkt_ILOFFTaskForce.html This request for input is going out to over 50 people nationwide representing a diversity of cultures. We will obviously not be able to include all suggestions but solicit your input because we respect your expertise and experience. This is hopefully just the beginning of a much greater on-going process. Thank you for your help. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us. Debbie and Jim Debbie Hillman and Jim Braun, Coordinators Illinois Local & Organic Food & Farm Task Force DLHILLMAN@sbcglobal.net 847/328-7175 JBraun2525@yahoo.com 515/229-2679

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