Regional Resilience: Connecting the Northeast Ohio Value-Added Farm and Food Community
The Northeast Ohio Ag Innovation Center (NEO-AIC), Forest City Food Collective (formerly Oberlin Food Hub), and The Fare Project co-organized and participated in the first Northeast Ohio Regional Resilience convening in Cleveland’s MidTown Neighborhood on April 9-10, 2026. The event brought together leaders from 50+ organizations and enterprises that support farms and value-added producers throughout the region with the goal of building new relationships, identifying convergent needs and opportunities to share resources, and collectively deciding next steps.
Attendees were selected through a competitive application process and represented all aspects of Northeast Ohio’s farm and food sector. Participants hailed from across the region’s rural, urban, and suburban communities and represented education, funding, advocacy, policy, research, communication, farming, aggregation, distribution, processing, marketing, and retail operations.
The event was supported by USDA Rural Development funds and Kim Hines from the North American Food Systems Network helped to facilitate the activities. Attendees enjoyed food prepared by MidTown chefs made with ingredients from around the region and flowers from local farms.
Dr. Shoshanah Inwood, OSU Professor and rural sociologist, shared information about Northeast Ohio’s farm and food assets, which includes over 2 million acres of farmland - 62.7% of which is considered nationally significant by American Farmland Trust. Inwood also highlighted social infrastructure as a critical ingredient for creating resilient farm and food systems noting “You don’t make friends in a disaster, it’s our relationships that hold us through the good times and bad.”
As the event concluded, there was collective interest in holding future networking activities and forming a Northeast Ohio Food and Farm Coalition to collaborate on shared projects.
The next Regional Resilience gathering is scheduled for Friday, October 16th in Akron.
If you would like to learn more or would like your organization to be included in future communications, contact neoRegionalResilience@gmail.com.