Background:
The Center for Economic Opportunity was established to decrease poverty in New York City, and works with different city agencies to accomplish its mission.  The Office of the Food Policy Coordinator supports and develops policies and programs to increase healthy food access, promote food security, and improve food system sustainability in New York City.  

Our offices are exploring opportunities for expanded partnerships to support food-focused paid internships for low-income or disconnected youth. Specifically, we are seeking input from potential work sites with an interest in hosting paid interns. The following is a short survey to gauge interest and help inform our understanding of this opportunity.

Join the growing movement and register for the American Farmland Trust's No Farms No Food Rally, February 15, at the State Capitol, in Albany. Unite with farmers, local foods advocates, community leaders and others to tell Governor Cuomo and the state legislature how much we care about local farms and food!
 
Meet in person with our legislators and urge them to support funding and legislation to:
·        Strengthen New York’s Farm & Food Economy
·        Protect Farmland & the Environment
·        Increase Access to Locally Grown Food
 
A local foods lunch will be served!
 
Bus transportation roundtrip from New York City to Albany is available!

By Thomas Forster

This month a New School continuing education course that provides citizen activists and working professionals with a foundation in food and farm policy change for New York, the nation and our world will begin its fifth season. “Food Policy for the Local Food Revolution” is taught by former farmer and policy campaigner Thomas Forster over 15 Monday evenings at 6 pm from January 23 to May 14. This course gives tools through readings, discussion and guest lectures to policy learners from beginning to advanced levels so they may comprehend and engage city, state, national and international food and farm policy processes.

Winter and spring 2012 is a critical year for food and agriculture policy. The class will learn about NYC City Council FoodWorks agenda and about new interest in the resilience of the food system at City Hall. The federal food and farm bill will be debated in Congress during this class, and students will learn just how important New York is to the national debate on the future of food.  At the international level the UN headquarters in New York will be the venue for a global debate about the nexus of food security, climate change and economic volatility. This class gives students much more than an armchair view of these linked processes, bringing them up close to policy actors and organizations in real time policy research and action.

For more information about this and other New School continuing education classes, visit the online catalogue at http://ceregistration.newschool.edu/register/index.cfm

Job Position: President (chief executive) of Glynwood Center, Inc.
Submission Deadline: February 10, 2012

Glynwood Center, Inc. is one of the nation’s premier nonprofit organizations in the field of sustainable agriculture and rural community development. We are now seeking a new President (chief executive) to take us into our next era of growth and expansion, building on a remarkable 17-year history of creative successes.

About Glynwood.

Glynwood’s mission is to enhance and strengthen the regional food system in the greater Hudson River Valley. Our home-base is a 225 acre farm and homestead in Cold Spring NY (approximately 90 minutes north of New York City in Putnam County), which encompasses a fully working demonstration farm with livestock, crops, an apprentice program and CSA; offices and meeting rooms (in former stables); and several homes and houses (staff housing and conference facility).

In addition to farming, educational and public activities at our facilities in Cold Spring, Glynwood also conducts a number of outreach programs, and develops model pilot projects. All our efforts are designed to improve the quality and expand the capacity of the regional food system, and to engender a rural community context in which local agriculture and its culture can flourish. Over the years, we have built a large and loyal network of people, organizations and communities -- local, regional, national, and international -- that turns to Glynwood for leadership, guidance and information about the growth and development of regional food systems and rural community development.

Glynwood’s immediate service region, the Greater Hudson River Valley, extends from the tri-state metro area of New York City, north to the state’s capital region in Albany and beyond; and from the Catskill Mountains to Western Massachusetts. Currently, we maintain a staff of 13 full-time and 3 part-time employees, and have an annual budget of approximately $2.9 million. Our endowment draw is applied toward our site operations, and we maintain an active ongoing resource and fund development program.