Fair Food Fund

Part 4: The Road Ahead

Part 3: Key Players in Food Systems Impact Investing

At the national level, Farmland LP invests in conventional farmland and converts it to higher-value organic farmland. RSF Social Finance’s Food & Agriculture PRI Fund, on the other hand, focuses on investing in value-added processing local/regional food distribution businesses. The fund made its first loan to Common Market Philadelphia, a non-profit social enterprise that aggregates food from local farms in the Philadelphia area and distributes to institutional customers in the region. RSF recently made a second loan to Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative, a local food distributor based in Maine and committed to supporting Maine farmers. In 2012, Slow Money, a national food systems non-profit, plans to launch the Soil Trust, which will reinvest donations from individuals and foundations in a variety of good food enterprises.

Part 2: The Growing Demand for Local, Sustainable Food

The seeds of the sustainable food systems movement were planted decades ago by a variety of farmers, foundations, land grant universities, non-profits, and forward-thinking public officials. As the movement has grown, many more people have realized the social, environmental, and economic consequences of the current system and are demanding more good food.

Part 1: Developing the Fair Food Fund

This blog is the first in a four-part series titled Growing Good Food Enterprises through Impact Investing. In this post, we’ll introduce our ideas for the Fair Food Fund. Future blogs in the series will discuss the growing consumer demand for local food, describe some of the key food and agriculture impact investors, and distill our thoughts on the future of food and agriculture impact investing.