Mohawk Valley Farm & Agribusiness Network
Our Mission:
To provide Mohawk Valley farms and agribusinesses with industry resources necessary to create a robust, diverse, productive, and efficient agricultural landscape.
Our Vision:
To provide resource guidance, technological enhancement and conservation best-practice for farms and agribusinesses, creating a sustainable and vibrant agricultural sector in the Mohawk Valley of New York.
This website is designed on the premise that the food system - farms & farmers, processors, distributors, retailers and other agribusinesses comprise a network uniquely interrelated with each other. Our hope is that this space can be used as a clearinghouse - a one stop shop for everything agriculture as it relates to farms and agribusinesses.
MVFAN (Mohawk Valley Food Action Network) was a group convened in 2010 by Cornell Cooperative Extension Oneida County, Rust2Green Utica, the Resource Center for Independent Living, and the City of Utica. It was also made possible with the support of a USDA Hunger Free Communities grant and the United Way of the Valley and Greater Utica Area. The group focused on helping strengthen the local food system, and advocating for economic development efforts that increase food system business opportunities for local food industries to produce value added products. By being an advocate for economic development efforts that focus on these value-added business opportunities, MVFAN wanted to help create agriculture jobs, and increase access to healthy foods for all residents.
The work of MVFAN was based on the premise that the food system - farmers, processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, emergency food programs, consumers, as well as the businesses and agencies that support them -- comprises a network that has uniquely important and interrelated impacts on the health of our environment, our economy, and individuals. A resilient local food system is the foundation to position agriculture of all kinds and sizes as a job creating economic engine.
From these beginnings, our conversation turned to the farmer and the agribusiness owner and how the partnership started in Schoharie County could continue the original vision of the food action network, with a different lens. We want to use our agricultural ecosystem to generate more economic activity.