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28 <br /> inform the work. She said she hears Commissioner McKee's frustration, does not take it <br /> personally, and knows there are always more farmers to reach. <br /> Commissioner McKee said the county is already working through this through economic <br /> development loans and grants and the farmers using Breeze Farm. <br /> Ashley Heger said those farmers were interviewed and they said they could use help in <br /> bridging the gap between incubator farm and wholesaling. <br /> Commissioner Bedford asked when the MOU will come back to the Board. <br /> Ashley Heger said hopefully very soon. She said this is an update and that she has to <br /> work with the Attorney's Office to finalize the MOU and that the Board can see the redlined <br /> version. <br /> Commissioner Bedford said the Climate Reorganization Subcommittee reviewed the <br /> MOU and Council Member Slade said the Food Council members choose their own members. <br /> She asked who approves their bylaws. She said that she does not want to create a group that <br /> the Board has no control over. <br /> Ashley Heger said this is the tricky part of embracing relationships and not seeing that <br /> as some form of nepotism or playing favorites. She said she is open to as much transparency <br /> as possible. She said that she can walk them through how they became a hybrid group of the <br /> county. She said in 2019 there was a desire that the Food Council remain an autonomous body <br /> that she would help coordinate and they could engage in state level advocacy work. She said <br /> now they are not getting close to that type of work. She said if there is a group, like the NC <br /> Food System Advocacy Coalition, then they can participate in it. She said they are not a formal <br /> advisory board and that one of the reasons is the community said they have disengaged from <br /> participating in most of these advisory boards because we see no return and is often a space <br /> that is not designed for us. She said when original legal agreement came through, it was <br /> decided that the executive committee would have all elected official liaisons and that committee <br /> would oversee all final decisions. She said the way members are selected is through a <br /> campaign for new members. She said the application asks for information about where people <br /> live, work, and how much money they generate. She said they want that information to know if <br /> the council is representative of the community and every part of the food system. She said the <br /> executive committee make the final decision after reviewing the applications. She said that <br /> probably feels informal because that is different than how other advisory boards work in the <br /> county. <br /> Commissioner Bedford asked for Ashley Heger to provide demographic information on <br /> the board. <br /> Ashley Heger said up until 2020 they were a majority non-white council. She said age <br /> ranges from eighteen and beyond. She said that gender-wise, it is heavily female. She said she <br /> would be happy to share trends overtime. <br /> Commissioner Greene said she is the elected liaison to the Food Council and has been <br /> involved in it since the beginning. She said if the Board is going to say the Council is not <br /> working because they are not putting food on tables then that is not going to get anywhere <br /> because that is not the purpose of the Food Council and that has never been the purpose. She <br /> said that the purpose of the Food Council is to work within and strengthen the food system in <br /> Orange County. She said this work is to help farmers that are already mission driven to be a <br /> networking farmers and to help them take advantage of changes that the Council can bring to <br /> the system. She said that they can use the help of the Council to gain access to places that <br /> they had not before. She said they saw during COVID what happens when the food distribution <br /> system breaks. She said that there was milk being destroyed in Midwest because they had put <br /> it in containers for school children and they did not have the big containers to send it to the <br /> grocery store and they found they could not switch on a dime and had to dump the milk down <br /> drains. She said that now there is a greater awareness of the need and interest in making local <br />