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Devona Sherwood, Program Officer at the Wallace Center at Winrock International <br /> described the Center's programs in food systems. A national leader in sustainable and <br /> equitable food systems, the Center supports several programs that strengthen the food <br /> value chain including GAP-certification food safety courses at Grand Rapids Community <br /> College and Appalachian Sustainable Development. FamilyFarmed.org offers a web- <br /> based food safety plan creation tool. The Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development <br /> (HUFED) Center was developed in order to address food access issues. Funded by the <br /> USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Center provides technical and <br /> financial assistance to projects that help increase access of healthy foods, including <br /> local agriculture. Its Community Food Enterprise supports locally owned food <br /> businesses by profiling and researching the impacts of 24 successful food enterprises <br /> from the Americas,Africa.Asia and Eastern Europe. <br /> Supporting aggregation, distribution, and processing, Wallace developed the National <br /> Food Hub Collaboration to study and support food hubs. The organization also works <br /> with distributors, including Sysco in Grand Rapids and two other regional companies to <br /> add local foods to products distributed. They partner with Local Orbit to produce <br /> traceability software to enable low-cost management. Wallace Center is creating a <br /> Value Chains handbook to further this work. The HUFED program and Community <br /> Food Enterprise program support the retail side of the chain and Wallace Center worked <br /> on seven case studies of farmers markets to model the benefits and success of direct <br /> sales models. The National Good Food Network of Wallace Center researches <br /> innovative food chain models, including Good Natured Family Farms partnership with <br /> Balls Food Stores and a pilot project with Sysco Corporation. Wallace Center project, <br /> Value Chain and Enterprise Capacity Building, with aid from the W.K. Kellogg <br /> Foundation, offers technical assistance to food system organizations and enterprises. <br /> The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Educational Enhancement Project with USDA <br /> takes on the train the trainer role and adds an enterprise development component to <br /> their projects in addition to supporting peer learning. The National Good Food Network <br /> is developing a Regional Food Hub Resource Guide and offers technical assistance <br /> through its webinar series and provides on online resource library. Challenges and <br /> training needs include food safety training, sustainable agriculture practices, business <br /> and marketing skills, lack of infrastructure (aggregation points, cooling, packing and <br /> freezing spaces, and communications), limitations of transportation and distribution, <br /> timely market information, finance capital and access to government programs, and <br /> limited access to technology. <br /> What can community colleges do to meet the growing potential of and <br /> opportunities in diversified and sustainable food systems clusters? <br /> First, community colleges need to recognize the full economic potential of growing high <br /> value-added specialty foods on small farms and its entrepreneurial structure to make <br /> sure the career paths reflect reality. This means informing students about the multiple <br /> 8 <br />