Workshops & Events
The Lab co-hosts workshops and events in partnership with individuals and organizations aligned in the movement to seed a new local food economy built on justice and solidarity.
Upcoming Events
4th Annual Gathering for San Diego County Food Vision 2030 ↗
Thursday, October 17, 2024
California Center for the Arts
Escondido, CA
The Annual Gathering for San Diego County Food Vision 2030 takes place every fall, featuring inspirational speakers, interactive sessions, open space for dialogue and networking, and local food. At this year’s Annual Gathering, we’re expecting over 500 San Diegans to come together and share stories and ideas for how we can invest in our local food economy, steward agricultural land and soils, elevate wages and working conditions for food and farm workers, center equity, community ownership, and cooperation in our food system, and more.
Every year, the Annual Gathering invites our region to reflect on a theme. The themes from the previous three Gatherings were Formation (2021), Belonging (2022), and Kinship (2023). This year, the theme is Cooperation ↗.
Past Workshops & Webinars
On Cooperative Development
Introduction to Cooperative Businesses | with Farmer Mai Nguyen
Cooperatives are taking shape and growing in all parts of the food system. And yet, their founders are swimming upstream in an environment designed for hierarchical business models. In this workshop, small-scale farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food business owners gained an understanding of different cooperative businesses in the food and farming sector, and discussed challenges and opportunities for truly working democratically across San Diego County’s food system. This workshop was offered in partnership with Mai Nguyen (they/them), a farmer and co-op developer.
Introduction to Worker Cooperatives: Food and Farm Edition | with Farmer Mai Nguyen
Democratically-run businesses wherein the workers are the owners give us the chance to radically change our economy, ecologies, and relationships for a more equal society. This workshop provided a basic understanding of the structure and start-up needs for a worker cooperative business, and seeded dialogue around the transformative collective work that is needed to build a culture that supports cooperative economies. This workshop was offered in partnership with Mai Nguyen (they/them), a farmer and co-op developer.
Introduction to Producer Cooperatives: Food and Farm Edition | with Farmer Mai Nguyen
The food and farming sector has faced corporate consolidation over the past four decades that makes it challenging for small-scale businesses to gain a secure place in the market. Producer cooperatives have historically been proven as a way for businesses to leverage an economy of scale that enables them to purchase, process, distribute, or sell products and services, thus preserving their autonomy while collaborating to meet common needs. This workshop provided a basic understanding of the structure and start-up needs for a producer cooperative business, and seeded dialogue around the transformative collective work that is needed to build a culture that supports cooperative economies. This workshop was offered in partnership with Mai Nguyen (they/them), a farmer and co-op developer.
Other Workshops & Webinars
Advocacy 101: Intro to Local Government for Small-Scale Farmers, Fishermen, Food Business Owners | with Consuelo Martinez
Consuelo Martinez (she/her/ella), Escondido City Councilmember and Advocacy & Leadership Director at the San Diego Food System Alliance, led this workshop sharing tips from her experience both as a public official and an individual with two decades of experience in community organizing and advocacy.
Some topics covered:
• Identifying our local decision makers: Who sets policy for the City and County of San Diego?
• How to engage local decision makers to advance our causes
• Tips for effective public testimony
• Q&A about navigating the system
Farm Bill Webinar | with HEAL Food Alliance
The Farm Bill is some of the most powerful federal legislation shaping the United States’ food and farm system. It impacts all of us living here, as well as communities around the world. At the time of this recording, the next Farm Bill was yet to be voted on. Traditionally, the Farm Bill has been shaped by powerful players, primarily big farming corporations. A Farm Bill shaped by big corporations leads to a Farm Bill that benefits big corporations.
This webinar invited those interested in demanding a Farm Bill that puts people over corporations to hear about HEAL Food Alliance’s policy recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill, updates on their advocacy efforts, news from Farm Bill discussions, how to take action and write to our Congress members, and more.
Financial Literacy Workshop with Kitchen Table Consultants
This workshop was offered in partnership with Rebecca Frimmer of Kitchen Table Consultants, a collective of advisors passionate about supporting local food systems and providing meaningful, hands on advising services to small businesses.
The goal of this full-day workshop was to support new and beginning, small-scale food business owners with building knowledge of business finance and creating standard operating procedures for managing finances at their unique businesses—as well as to provide a space for dialogue and questions for developing financial literacy as emerging entrepreneurs.
Topics covered in the workshop included the following:
• Bookkeeping best practices for data driven decision making
• Understanding your financial statements: profit and loss & balance sheet
• Building a budget from scratch and measure performance
• Building an opportunity assessment toolkit - is new debt worth it?
• Bridging the gap between profits and cash flow