Laura Dowd, Founder and Executive Director of Local Foods Connection, is a member of the newly created Johnson County Food Policy Council Iowa). Some of the responsibilities of the council include:

-Provide ongoing advice and input to the county, municipalities, community boards, agencies, nonprofits, businesses, etc. on food related issues as needed

-Annually hold two publicized public forums for the community to bring County food and agriculture issues and opportunities to the community’s attention for action

-Develop a set of governing principles and strategic goals to guide future local government and community decision making related to food issues

-Provide an annual report of findings and accomplishments to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors and Iowa Corridor Food and Agriculture advisory board.

For the June 2012 meeting, council members were asked to prepare a SWOT analysis of the local food system in Johnson County, Iowa. SWOT is a strategic planning method that breakdowns the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a project or system. It involves identifying the internal and external factors that favorable and unfavorable to achieve an objective.

Dowd is developing her SWOT analysis of local food in Johnson County, Iowa and would appreciate your feedback. Dowd recognizes her analysis is biased to the Iowa City area, and especially needs help in filling in information related to other communities in the county. Please feel free to email Dowd at: localfoodsconnection@yahoo.com

The SWOT document can be found here: SWOT local food Johnson County Iowa