PLAN COMPONENTS
The NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan will have four major components.
Goals: What do we want New Hampshire’s food system to look like?
Indicators: How can we measure progress toward our goals?
Product, Market, and Issue Briefs: What are the products, markets and issues crucial to the New Hampshire food system? What are the recommendations from experts to strengthen, improve, or protect the identified issues, products, and markets?
Action Lists: Recommendations from the Briefs (specific programs, investments, and policies that will move the needle toward the food system we want to build), ranked and categorized by who has the ability to enact the recommendation, among other factors.
Product, Market, and Issue Briefs
The core of the NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan will consist of 27 briefs covering the products, markets, and issues that are pivotal to a thriving food system in New Hampshire. Each brief will address a specific topic through the lenses of farm viability and equity — current status, barriers, opportunities, and 3-5 specific recommendations from the authors on how to improve, advance, or address the challenges stated in each brief.
Brief recommendations will be grouped by geographic scope (national, regional, state, and county/city/town) and by sphere of influence (who has the power to take action on the recommendation) to create clear paths for action to enact change across our food system. Please view the list of brief topics below, organized into products, markets, and issues. Input from the NH Food Alliance network and food system stakeholders will inform the products, markets, and issues covered, as well as who will contribute to each brief, what issues are important to consider, what information is critical to include, and how to categorize final recommendations.
Each Brief will be availalbe to review for a 30 day Public Comment Period, as they are completed beginning in September 2024. So whether you're interested in seafood, value added processing, climate resilience or all-of-the-above, visit the Brief Tracker to provide comment.
BRIEF TRACKER // PUBLIC COMMENT
PLAN PROCESS + TIMELINE
The strategic plan will be developed through the following process and timeline, with an anticipated publishing date of early 2025.
Participatory Engagement Plan
A key part of the strategic planning process is identifying and engaging with stakeholders from across New Hampshire’s food system in the planning process to provide feedback and input on the plan content through surveys, listening sessions, focus groups, and other convenings.
Process
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Information gathered through the Participatory Engagement Plan will be analyzed to develop the goals and objectives, and to provide important context, information, and insight throughout the process of developing each Brief. (October 2023 through May 2024)
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The list of Product, Market and Issue Briefs is developed by the NH Food Alliance team and reviewed by the NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan Advisory Committee and NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan Action Team. (October 2023 through March 2024)
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Subject matter experts will be invited to participate in the development of each brief. All briefs will have a standardized template and include 3-5 specific recommendations for how to strengthen our food system in relation to the issue, product, or market. (May through December 2024)
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Each brief will be open and available for a 30 day Public Comment Period. See the Brief Tracker for the anticipated timeline and to sign up for alerts.
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The recommendations from each brief will be clustered and categorized according to a list developed by the NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan Advisory Committee. (December 2024 - January 2025)
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Recommendations from each brief will be mapped in relation to the goals and indicators so stakeholders can understand the connection between each. (December 2024 - January 2025)
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The NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan will be published in early 2025 and shared widely.
Have thoughts on all of this? Share them through our Open Input Form!
