About the Annual Gathering
3rd Annual Gathering for San Diego County Food Vision 2030
Thursday, October 19, 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 the Annual Gathering, San Diegans come together and share stories and ideas for how we can invest in our local food economy, preserve agricultural land and soils, elevate wages and working conditions for food and farm workers, increase ownership by Indigenous and People of Color, promote food sovereignty, and more. These are key elements of San Diego County Food Vision 2030—our region’s shared vision, plan, and movement to cultivate a healthier, more sustainable, and more just food system.
The goal of the Gathering is to provide an inclusive and inspiring space for those working to cultivate justice, fight climate change, and build resilience in their communities—whether through transforming the food system, or leading other movements for social change.
The Gathering is for everyone. Whether you produce, prepare, distribute, serve, or simply love to eat or learn about food, you’re likely to attend a session or make a connection at the Annual Gathering that will be valuable to you.
The video below shares some of our intentions behind the Annual Gathering, and footage from the first two years.
San Diego County Food Vision 2030
The Annual Gathering is a yearly opportunity for our region to come together around San Diego County Food Vision 2030 as we work on implementing its ten objectives.
San Diego County Food Vision 2030 is a shared vision, plan, and movement for transforming our region’s food system over the next decade. With three goals, ten objectives, and detailed strategies to inform policy, program, planning, and investment opportunities, Food Vision 2030 serves as a call to action and political compass as we work together toward a more equitable and resilient future for all.
Food Vision 2030 was published in the Summer of 2021, and is the work of many people. 3,000 residents of San Diego County voiced their needs and aspirations for the food system and provided essential input on the Vision.
This year's theme — Kinship
“We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship.”*
Indigenous communities who have lived alongside and cared for this land since time immemorial—upon which most of us are only recent visitors—have always known that there is only one sustainable way forward: seeing the world around us as a community of life, as kin.
The second Gathering’s theme was belonging. Last year, we invited attendees to consider this astounding world of relations to which we belong. Every being is interdependent and undeniably connected. What would it look like to center kinship in our systems once more? How can we become better kin? Answering these questions is crucial for cultivating a food system that works for all of us—cultivators, distributors, eaters, and the community of life to which we belong.
*This passage on kinship is from storytellers Gavin Van Horn and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Read more here.