food relief goes local

Transcription

FOOD RELIEF GOES LOCAL
GARDENING, GLEANING, AND FARMING FOR FOOD BANKS IN THE U.S.
Domenic Vitiello
Jeane Ann Grisso
Rebecca Fischman
K. Leah Whiteside
A report on research funded by the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Acknowledgments
2
Executive Summary
3
Introduction
5
Methods
8
Summary of Findings
10
Case study: Gleaners Food Bank of Southeast Michigan, Detroit, MI
14
Gleaning
15
Case studies:
Village Harvest, San Jose, CA
Second Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, CA
Food Forward, Los Angeles, CA
Portland Fruit Tree Project, OR
19
21
23
25
Gardening
27
Case studies:
Food Gatherers Food Bank, Ann Arbor, MI
Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR
30
31
Farming
33
Case studies:
Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA
Chester County Food Bank, PA
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Raleigh, NC
Capital Area Food Bank, Washington, DC
34
35
37
39
Conclusion: Policy Implications and Opportunities
41
Endnotes
44
Appendix: Interview Questions for Case Studies
45
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report summarizes research funded by the University of Pennsylvania Center for Public Health Initiatives
(CPHI) pilot grant program. We owe a great thanks to the many people who supported us in this project:
Our colleagues in the CPHI and the Penn Office of the Provost for the generous grant support of this project; and
more generally to Wendy Voet and our colleagues in the CPHI Food Access Working Group for their ongoing
support of our work exploring the roles of urban agriculture in community food systems.
Gillian Brainard, Bill Shick, and especially Steveanna Wynn at our partner organization in this research, SHARE
Food Program of Philadelphia, who helped shape the questions, data collection, and policy relevance of this
research.
Adina Lieberman, who worked with us as a research assistant along with Rebecca Fischman and Leah Whiteside.
Sheila Christopher at Hunger Free Pennsylvania, who along with our colleagues at SHARE procured data that
enabled us to build our database of food banks and programs.
The staff of food banks and other organizations who hosted our site visits and participated in interviews, the results
of which are reported in case studies in the report: Larry Welsch, Phoebe Kitson-Davis, and Jack Muhs at the
Chester County Food Bank (PA); Craig Deserens at Village Harvest (CA); Diane Zapata at Second Harvest Food
Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties (CA); Starlite Ossiginac and Jerry Creekpaum at Second Harvest of
Orange County (CA); Meg Glasser at Food Forward (CA); Michael McDonald, Ariana Riegel, and Anne Schenk
at Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeast Michigan; Missy Orge and Eileen Spring at Food Gatherers (MI);
Jill Staton Bullard, Kia Baker, Terri Hutter, Kathleen Andrew, and Neal Wisenbaker at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
(NC); Ali Abbors and Ginny Sorensen at the Oregon Food Bank; Katy Kolker at the Portland Fruit Tree Project
(OR); Shamia Holloway and Jody Tick at the Capital Area Food Bank (DC); and also the many other food bank
professionals who answered our email and phone inquiries.
Professor David Aftandilian of Texas Christian University, who shared some of his research on food banks’
gardening programs.
Holly Beddome at the University of Manitoba, who shared her Masters study of fruit gleaning organizations.
Food Gatherers, Ann Arbor, MI
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
More than one in eight Americans relies on food
assistance distributed through food banks, including
over 14 million children. Food banks are nonprofit
organizations designated by state governments to
distribute federal and state food aid to food cupboards
(also known as pantries), soup kitchens, homeless
shelters, and other emergency food organizations.
Most food relief comes from federal and state
programs that provide surplus commodities, mainly
canned and boxed foods, from industry to food
banks. However, food banks have recently enlarged
their distribution and promotion of fresh vegetables
and fruit. Many food banks are accomplishing this
through involvement in and connections to local
agriculture, in a diverse range of gardening, farming,
and field gleaning programs. Many food banks are
also playing expanded roles in building community
food security, especially through programs that
support gardeners and farmers. As more Americans
need food assistance while, at the same time, state
and federal funding for food relief is shrinking,
scaling up and replicating programs that distribute
and support production and consumption of fresh
produce offers a vital opportunity to transform food
relief systems.
This report summarizes the results of research
3
examining food banks’ engagement in and with local
agriculture. The report documents how food banks
grow, support production, and acquire fresh fruit and
vegetables directly from local farms and gardens in
cities and regions across the United States. We include
information about the different ways that food banks
do this as well as estimates of how much fresh, local
produce they distribute to hungry people. The report
consists of: a brief introduction; a description of our
methods; basic summary analysis of our findings;
sections on gleaning, gardening, and farming
programs, with case studies of best practices at eleven
food banks and partner organizations; followed by a
brief discussion of some policy implications of their
work.
The main ways food banks attain food from local
agriculture are:
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workers harvest vegetables and fruit that farmers or
gardeners do not want, in the field, backyards and
parks, or from farmers markets, and they distribute it
to food banks, cupboards, or other recipients.
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plots, or fields of vegetables for donation to food
banks, cupboards, and other organizations.
Key findings from our national scan and case studies
of food banks and allied programs in cities and
metropolitan areas include:
Village Harvest, CA
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support community, school, and home gardeners,
in poor and middle class communities, providing
education, materials such as raised bed starter kits,
and outlets for donated produce.
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volunteers tend and harvest these sites, some of which
include new farmer training programs.
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contract with farmers for single crops or to supply
a mix of food for weekly distribution to low-income
households.
Some food banks also process, preserve, and prepare
food produced and procured through the means
listed above in their kitchens. Often these activities
are carried out in concert with cooking education and
food worker training programs.
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relief are expanding.
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organizations to diversify the mix of food they
distribute, increasing the volume and share of fresh
fruits and vegetables, and promote healthier diets
among those least able to afford it.
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distributed by food banks makes up a very small
proportion of the total food distributed, usually
around one percent (1%).
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their programs to include a large proportion of locally
grown food. For example, we found 17 food banks
that produced and sourced over five percent (5%) of
their total food directly from local agriculture. At 13
of those food banks the proportion was above 10%,
and at 4 food banks it reached 40% or higher.
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sourced directly from farmers to food banks are
harvested through large-scale gleaning programs
that distribute millions of pounds, usually from big
commercial growers.
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lower volumes of food (and often do not document
their yields), but they play vital roles in building
community capacity for healthy food production,
distribution, and consumption, and in some cases
promoting food justice. These activities have led to
food banks assuming new and diverse roles in many
community food systems.
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scale up these efforts, and to document their impacts.
Food banks are often unaware of others’ programs,
which slows the pace of dissemination and expansion.
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programs are largely dependent upon grant funding
and volunteers, though they adopt varied business
models.
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these programs offer examples of how food relief
production, procurement, and distribution systems
can be transformed to provide more healthful, fresh
food and to promote community capacity to combat
food insecurity.
4
INTRODUCTION
The experience of SHARE Food Program (Self Help
and Resource Exchange), our partner in this research,
is representative of an important trend in food relief.
Since 1991, SHARE has distributed federal and state
food relief to over 500 emergency food cupboards in
the city of Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the
U.S. today. Most of this food is commodity surplus,
cans and boxes, often highly processed. But over the
years, SHARE’s director Steveanna Wynn and her
staff have complemented this with a growing stream
of fresh, local food, especially in recent years with
increased public concern over nutrition and health
and more funding for food programs. The large-scale
infusion of fresh produce has come about through a
variety of creative ways of gardening, farming, and
sourcing of fruits and vegetables, but also through
significant shifts in SHARE’s role in the local and
regional food system.
Like other distributors of food relief, SHARE has
pursued diverse strategies to link hungry people
with fresh local produce. In 2001, SHARE partnered
with The Food Trust to initiate a Fresh Food Package
of locally grown fruits and vegetables from nearby
Lancaster County, which SHARE distributes
monthly as part of its signature buying club program,
which it has operated in Philadelphia since 1986.
SHARE now partners with Chester County Food
SHARE Food Program, Philadelphia, PA
5
Bank to purchase more from farmers in the region.
Since 2006, the Society of St. Andrew, which runs
gleaning networks in 22 states, has delivered tractortrailer loads of potatoes from Mid-Atlantic farms to
SHARE, twice each year. In 2006, SHARE helped the
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) establish
the City Harvest program, in which community
gardeners grow and deliver food to over thirty
cupboards. In 2009, SHARE planted its first of two
orchards with the Philadelphia Orchard Project, on a
plot of land across the parking lot from its warehouse.
In 2010, SHARE expanded fresh package distribution
through a weekly “low-income CSA.” Also that year,
it hired a full-time farmer, erected a 60-foot-long
hoop house next to the orchard with the Penn State
Agricultural Extension, and formally established the
Nice Roots Farm. In 2011, SHARE opened a garden
center with PHS to distribute seedlings, compost, and
other supplies, and SHARE’s farmer began helping
cupboards start their own gardens. By 2012, these
various programs were producing, procuring, and
delivering over 235,000 pounds of fresh, locally grown
fruits and vegetables to low-income Philadelphians.
Far more than a food distributor, SHARE has become a
producer in its own right, a food hub aggregating local
food, an urban agriculture support organization, and
a community food center. On days when cupboard
Practitioners of food relief have diverse yet
complementary motives for connecting to local
agriculture. For most food banks, growing or sourcing
more fresh fruits and vegetables is a logical outgrowth
of their commitment to promote healthy eating and
lifestyles. In a related vein, some food banks seek to
preserve and promote local agricultural heritage and
to support new generations of gardeners and farmers.
Some food banks also explicitly promote food justice,
particularly in gardening and farming programs. On
a more basic level, food banks across the United States
are driven by the rise in poverty and demand for their
assistance since the mid-2000s, which has inspired
food relief organizations to seek new sources of food.
SHARE Food Program, Philadelphia, PA
operators pick up canned and boxed food from the
warehouse, they buy produce at cut-rate prices from
the farm, where the farmer and volunteers also offer
demonstrations, tastings, and tips for growing and
preparing fresh vegetables. SHARE has plans to cover
much of its 4-acre warehouse roof with greenhouses
and raised beds, and already keeps honeybees there.
The story of SHARE’s efforts to procure, produce,
distribute, and support others in growing fresh
vegetables and fruits is repeated at many food relief
organizations across the United States. Increasingly,
food banks, cupboards, and other emergency
feeding organizations are seeking a broader and
more nutritious mix of food to distribute to poor
people. Growing and getting local vegetables and
fruit helps food banks put more good food into food
relief, providing a vital complement to federal and
state commodity surplus programs, which have long
been dominated by shelf stable canned and boxed
goods, many with artificial preservatives, sweeteners,
and other ingredients condemned by today’s public
health and good food advocates. Equally significant,
through their gardening and farming programs,
many food banks have adopted new roles in
promoting community food security. This constitutes
a marked departure from food banks’ traditional role
in distributing commodity surplus and charitable
donations.
Yet most food banks and allied food relief organizations
are acting in relative isolation – collaborating at the
local level, but often unaware of related efforts in
other states and regions. This was one inspiration
for our research, which grows more specifically out
of our collaboration with SHARE in its recent urban
agriculture programs and strategic planning, through
which we became curious about the patterns and
trends among food relief organizations nationally. In
particular, we wanted to know just how widespread
these activities are as well as how, and how much,
they are impacting food relief.
This study aimed to document the scope, scale,
and best practices in food banks’ involvement in
local agriculture in cities and regions of the United
States – a sort of “state of the nation.” We asked two
principal questions: In what ways are food banks and
other agencies that distribute federal food relief at the
county or larger level directly sourcing, producing,
or supporting others in growing fresh vegetables and
fruits locally? How much food are these different
programs, which include a variety of gleaning,
gardening, and farming activities, contributing to the
stream of food distributed by food banks? Although
local and national media have profiled some of these
programs, there has been almost no study of the larger
patterns and trends among these programs nationally.
In addition to characterizing the patterns and trends,
our findings provide a baseline picture of the scope
of current practices with which practitioners,
researchers, and policy makers can assess future
changes over time.
6
gardening and urban farming sector as well as
older suburban farms, offers diverse and expanding
opportunities to source food in areas of the regional
food system that may not yet be tapped or turfed out.
Healthy, fresh, and local foods are increasingly
available with the growth of urban and suburban
gardening, farming, and markets that link consumers
directly with farmers. Expanded philanthropic
support of these activities has shaped these trends,
partly by encouraging nonprofit gardening, farming,
and direct marketing programs to link with food
relief organizations. Programs’ diverse goals and
activities produce different priorities as well as
varied definitions of “healthy” and “local.” These
are both relative terms, but in this study they refer
to fresh fruits and vegetables grown within the
same city, metropolitan region, or state as the food
bank distributing them (and in one case in adjacent
Mexico).
For most food banks, the food produced or procured
through gardening, gleaning, and farming programs
is part of broader strategies to distribute and promote
healthy food. Some food banks have adopted healthy
food guidelines that place restrictions on what they
distribute. Many have expanded education and
distribution programs encouraging healthy eating
and living. Significantly, the largest part of food
banks’ fresh produce procurement still happens at
ports and large wholesale and retail markets. Yet
local agriculture, including the growing community
7
Generally, our research finds that gleaning,
gardening, and farming achieve different goals
and results for food banks and their constituents.
Gleaning yields by far the greatest volume of food
among these programs, especially when it is tied to
large-scale farming. Gardening provides more than
just fresh produce; it also helps develop community
capacity for food production and promotes healthier
eating and activities that contribute to household and
community food security and health. Food banks’
farming programs are fewer and typically younger,
representing a more experimental set of efforts to
address an even wider range of food system and
allied community economic development challenges,
including food production and distribution but
extending also to workforce training, small business
incubation, and youth leadership. As many food
banks have become gardening and farming support
organizations, they have transformed their role in the
local food system most substantially, expanding from
sourcing, warehousing, distribution, and education,
into significant roles in production, grower support,
workforce training, small business incubation, youth
leadership, and food processing, as well.
In this report, we present a summary analysis of
patterns and trends as well as case studies detailing
the organizational and distribution chain models
employed by some of the larger and longer-established
programs that produce and/or distribute fresh local
food. Discussion is organized mainly in three broad
categories – gleaning, gardening, and farming – each of
which includes diverse institutional and distribution
patterns. We also report the amount of fresh produce
these programs distribute, and discuss related – but
often uncounted – ways that food banks support local
agriculture and vice versa. Finally, we reflect upon
some of the policy implications of food banks’ recent
program development in local agriculture as well as
potential directions for future research.
METHODS
Our research consisted of two parts: 1) a national
scan of gleaning, gardening, and farming programs
run by, or that donate food directly to, food banks;
and 2) site visits, interviews, and participation in
gardening, farming, and gleaning activities.
The national scan consisted of three stages. First,
we reviewed information on food banks listed as
member organizations of Feeding America, the trade
association of most of the larger food banks in the
United States. The Feeding America directory notes
if food banks run farm or garden programs , the
total pounds of food distributed by each member
food bank, and the number of people served,
among other information. We then examined the
web sites of food banks that listed such programs to
learn more. In addition, we screened the websites of
remaining Feeding America food banks to identify
any food banks that reported gardening, gleaning,
or farming programs that had not been captured in
the directory.
Our second phase involved working with our
partner organization, SHARE, and Hunger Free
Pennsylvania to identify additional food banks and
other lead agencies distributing federal and state
emergency food relief in counties that were not
affiliated with Feeding America.
The third phase consisted of a snowball sample,
developed as follows. Each time we contacted
individuals at food banks and colleagues in urban
agriculture, we also inquired about additional food
banks that we had not yet identified. Where it was
unclear from internet research if a program existed
or whether it was run by the food bank or a partner
organization (in a small number of cases), and when
the total pounds harvested from the program(s) in
2011 were not reported on the web site (in many
cases), we emailed and then phoned the food bank
seeking answers to these questions.
In each case, we reviewed the websites of potentially
eligible food banks to collect standardized information
on each food bank that included: 1) brief descriptions
of the methods used to produce or procure fresh
produce (e.g., gleaning, farms, gardens) and 2)
numbers of pounds of fresh produce the programs
distributed in the last year , and what proportion that
represented of the total food distributed by the food
bank. If this information was unclear or not available,
we contacted the food bank via email and phone to
clarify. These data represented the basis of our analysis
of national patterns of production and distribution.
Our scan’s methods have several strengths and
weaknesses. Food banks count pounds of food as
a routine part of their operations, since they are
reimbursed for (and often charge food cupboards
for) each pound of food they distribute. So we
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, Detroit, MI
8
could be reasonably confident that they were at least
trying to count the food in their gleaning, farming,
and gardening programs; though this is especially
challenging among gardening programs where food
banks do more than run their own gardens at their
warehouses. Internet research of course misses what
food banks and other organizations do not include on
their web sites. However, the information included
on food banks’ web sites has become relatively
standardized in compliance with federal food relief
programs, and by Feeding America among its
members. And since food banks exist principally to
receive donated food and distribute it to people in
need, their web sites tend to make clear the variety
of ways that people can donate, volunteer, and
participate in other ways in gardening, gleaning, and
farming programs.
Our sample of programs represents a particular part
of the larger food relief sector’s involvement and
links to local agriculture. We only capture programs
operated by food banks and programs that donate
food directly from farms (or farmers), gardens, and
orchards to food banks. We thus exclude food that
first passes through wholesalers or retailers, but we
include food donated to food banks from farmers
markets where growers sell their own produce. We
include programs that collaborate directly with
food banks in donating to their member agencies,
mostly cupboards. But we do not include the vast
number of smaller gardening and farming programs
across the United States that donate directly to food
cupboards, soup kitchens, and other emergency
feeding organizations independently of food banks.
Furthermore, we do not capture the great quantities
of food that community and home gardeners donate
to cupboards and other feeding programs outside
the context of any formal program (though we study
this in other research on community gardeners’ and
urban farmers’ food production and distribution in
U.S. cities). These latter streams of food from farms
and gardens to food relief organizations are least
likely to be formally and accurately quantified.
Our sample allows us to analyze not only the
distribution streams most likely to be counted reliably.
But, also, due to food banks’ position in the “food
relief chain” as county-level or regional distributors,
our sample enables us to examine activities that
have been integrated into food relief in typically
9
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, Detroit, MI
more systematic ways and at a larger scale than
neighborhood-based cupboards or soup kitchens.
Understanding this activity systematically and at scale
is especially important for drawing policy-relevant
lessons from this research.
Our site visits and interviews examined the operations
of a cross-section of programs. In selecting sites to
visit, we sought a diverse range of gardening, gleaning,
and farming programs in different regions of the
U.S., with different climates and agricultural bases.
We visited mainly older and larger programs, but
also some younger and smaller ones. The questions
we asked examined each program’s history and how
it operates, including details of the production and
distribution chain. The full list of questions is included
as an appendix to this report. On our site visits, we
also enjoyed the great pleasures of participating in
harvesting food banks’ gardens, gleaning backyard
fruit trees and commercial farms, and touring food
banks’ and allied programs’ gardens, farms, orchards,
warehouses, kitchens, and related sites. This all
enabled us to profile a range of gleaning, gardening,
and farming programs in detailed case studies that
illuminate best practices in linking local agriculture
and food relief.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Our findings from the study of one hundred fifteen
(115) food banks and allied organizations in the U.S.
suggest that the main ways food banks obtain fruits
and vegetables from local agriculture are, in order of
their frequency in our sample:
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workers harvest vegetables and fruit that farmers or
gardeners do not want, in the field, neighborhoods,
or after farmers markets, and they distribute it to
food banks, cupboards, or other recipients.
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rows, plots, or fields of vegetables for donation to
food banks, cupboards, and other organizations.
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support community, school, and backyard gardens,
in poor and middle class communities, providing
education, materials such as raised bed starter kits,
and outlets for donated produce.
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and volunteers tend and harvest these sites, some of
which include new farmer training programs.
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contract with farmers for single crops or to supply
a mix of food for weekly distribution to low-income
households.
Of the 115 organizations or programs for which we
collected information, 90 are food banks, 9 are state
associations of food banks or statewide gleaning
networks, and the remaining 16 are nonprofit gleaning
organizations, five of which also run garden programs
and one of which operates a farm. Many food banks
operate or partner with multiple programs. The 90
food banks in our study run 48 gleaning programs, 61
gardening programs, and 21 farm-related programs.
Together, the 115 organizations in our study account
for 73 gleaning programs, 65 gardening programs,
and 21 programs operating or partnering with farms.
Within each category – gleaning, gardening, and
farming – programs operate in a variety of ways,
engaging different sectors of agriculture and running
on distinct business models, with correspondingly
diverse food production and distribution patterns.
Among gleaning programs, the statewide initiatives
and many individual food banks partner with
commercial growers whose employees harvest,
package, and truck what they would otherwise not
pick. Other gleaning programs organize volunteers
to harvest, especially fruit from commercial
orchards and backyards – often these are small
nonprofits that deliver the harvest to food banks
Top 10 Food Banks -- Total Fresh Produce H arvested (lbs.)
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties**
22,000,000
St. Mary's Food Bank Aliance
7,350,339
East Texas Food Bank
5,520,000
Mid-Ohio Food Bank
4,014,000
Blue Ridge Area Food Bank
3,860,000
Food Bank for New York City
3,705,116
Second Harvest of Orange County**
3,176,163
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
3,000,000
San Antonio Food Bank
2,514,934
Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona
2,467,845
Table 1
* This and all other tables in the document report annual harvest figures for 2011.
** This figure overlaps with those from the Farm to Family program and Ag Against Hunger, as the food bank sources most of its gleaned
produce from these two programs.
***This figure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its
record-keeping.
10
Top 10 O rganizations Donating Produce
to Food Banks (lbs. harvested)
New Jersey Farmers Against Hunger
State Associations of Food Banks and Multi-State
Programs (lbs. harvested)
430,000
California Association of Food Banks
127,000,000
Village Harvest
203,000
Society of St. Andrew
26,900,000
Community Harvest Project
170,000
Ohio Association of Food Banks
26,000,000
Faith Feeds
96,000
Association of Arizona Food Banks
18,563,139
Texas Food Bank Network
13,000,000
Salem Harvest
92,209
Ag Against Hunger
8,400,000
Portland Fruit Tree Project
70,500
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance
1,200,000
Harvest Sacramento
40,000
Backyard Harvest
The Harvest Club of Orange County
36,800
24,561
Feeding Colorado
Kentucky Association of Food Banks
1,000,000
984,865
Table 3
Table 2
and affiliated cupboards. Gleaning by commercial
growers predictably yields larger volumes of fruit and
vegetables for food banks in most cases, though some
nonprofit and volunteer-run programs harvest and
distribute millions of pounds annually, too. Some of
the smaller nonprofits also seek to build community
food networks, tying gleaning to food production,
preservation, preparation, education, and community
organizing.
Gardening and orchard programs boost production of
vegetables and fruit and distribute it in more diverse
ways than gleaning programs, which usually provide
produce to the food banks rather than distributing
it directly to individuals. Gardening and orchard
programs also engage a diverse range of gardeners to
achieve varied aims. Many food banks run their own
gardens next to their warehouses or on other sites,
often for demonstration as well as food production.
Many food banks and partner organizations run
grow-a-row programs in which community and
backyard gardeners donate to the food bank or
affiliated feeding organizations. Increasingly, food
banks are also adopting the roles of community, home,
and school garden support organizations, providing
11
materials, technical assistance, and sometimes land.
Growers range from people who seek food relief to
more affluent gardeners; and this and other research
we have done has shown that poor and middle class
gardeners alike donate much of what they grow. Most
of the harvest from gardens not operated by food
banks or other nonprofits goes uncounted, which
is perhaps the greatest limitation of the quantitative
side of this study. Findings from our interviews with
program operators, however, suggest that gardening
programs contribute significantly to building food
relief organizations’ volunteer and donor bases, and
to increasing communities’ capacity to get fresh
produce into food relief and, through home and
community gardening, even more directly to food
insecure households.
Farming programs vary more than gleaning and
gardening programs, and they account for the smallest
number of programs in our sample, which limits our
ability to establish patterns. Among twenty-one (21)
food banks with farming programs, fourteen (14) run
their own farms and nine (9) contract or partner with
other farms (including three [3] of those with their
own farms). Food banks’ farm programs and their
Local Fresh Produce as Percentage of Total Food Bank D istribution
52%
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties
49%
41%
Food Gatherers Food Bank
40%
Cleveland Food Bank, Inc.***
26%
Island Harvest
22%
Chester County Food Bank
22%
14%
Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County
13%
The Food Bank for Westchester
13%
Mid-Ohio Food Bank
12%
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance
12%
10%
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan***
7.6%
Arkansas Foodbank
6.0%
5.7%
5.5%
Table 4
***This figure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its record-keeping.
growers range from youth leadership development to
new farmer training, though most employ a full-time
farmer and draw volunteers from food banks’ regular
stream of volunteers – for whom the farms offer
volunteer opportunities far different from packing
boxes in the warehouse. Food banks contract typically
with small farmers to supply single or multiple crops,
sometimes on land owned by the food bank, and
in some cases for CSA-style distribution. In some
instances, food banks partner with local governments
to access and preserve farmland producing for these
programs.
Together, the 115 organizations we studied
documented distribution of over 274 million
pounds of fruits and vegetables in 2011. Gleaning
accounted for some 266 million pounds, fully 96.9%
of the total fresh local food. The gardening programs
counted close to 1.4 million pounds, and the farming
programs more than 3.5 million pounds, though the
gardening programs supported far more production
and distribution than they recorded (without further
research, it is difficult to estimate how much more).
As noted above, it is important to bear in mind that
the gardening and farming programs typically have
broader goals, outcomes, and impacts than just the
provision of fruits and vegetables to food banks or
other feeding organizations.
At most food banks operating or connected to
gardens, farms and gleaning, this produce accounted
for approximately one (1) percent of the total food
they distributed. However, seventeen (17) food banks
obtained more than five (5) percent of their total food,
and thirteen (13) of those got more than ten (10)
percent, from local gleaning, gardening, or farming,
including food banks in Cleveland, Detroit, New
York City and Long Island, and San Jose and Orange
County, California. Five (5) food banks produced or
acquired more than twenty-five (25) percent of all the
food they distributed; and three (3) of those, mainly
in suburban areas, reported that half of their food
came from local agriculture.
Many of the top producers and distributors of fresh
local food among food banks get that food from
diverse sources, while gleaning programs account for
the rest of the top distributors in tables 1, 2, and 3,
which list the largest distributors of fresh local food
in our sample. Gleaners Food Bank of Southeast
12
Top 10 Food Banks -- Fresh Produce per Person (lbs.)
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties
52.78
44.04
Cleveland Food Bank, Inc.***
38.44
30.16
26.51
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan
24.25
Mid-Ohio Food Bank
16.15
14.31
10.97
10.89
Table 5
***This figure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its record-keeping.
Michigan, for example, which is profiled in the first
case study below, reflects both of these patterns. In
2011, it supported production and distribution of
more than 2.4 million pounds of vegetables and
fruit from affiliated gardens, farms, and produce
distribution centers, some 7.6 percent of all the
food distributed by the food bank. This translated
into more than 24 pounds to each of over 100,000
people in Detroit. Over 96 percent of the fruit and
vegetables that were counted came from gleaning.
Some of the gardens and farms connected with the
food bank grew more that was not counted, another
common pattern noted above.
In summary, several key patterns and trends emerge
from our inquiry into the types of programs and
the amount of food they distribute. Food banks
and their partners are expanding their links with
local agriculture through gleaning, gardening, and
farming. At most food banks, this accounts for a very
small proportion of the total food they distribute;
but some attain a large proportion of the food
they distribute through these means. Large-scale
gleaning programs account for the great majority
of the fresh, local fruits and vegetables distributed
through food banks, and have enabled some to
13
distribute large amounts of produce. Gardening
and farming account for a more diverse range of
activities that address a wider variety of problems
and opportunities that are vital to food and food
security, namely household and community
capacity for the production and consumption
of good food, including the preservation of
local agricultural heritage and training of new
generations of gardeners and farmers.
The next several pages as well as the three sections
that follow – on gleaning, gardening, and farming
programs – consist principally of 1) tables
illustrating some of the quantitative results of
our research, mainly in the form of “top 10” lists
documenting the larger scale operations; and
2) case studies that detail the operations of some of
the larger, more established programs representing
best practices of diverse sorts from across the
United States.
CASE STUDY
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern
Michigan incorporates fresh produce into its
distribution as part of its mission of providing
nutritious food to the hungry. Michael McDonald,
Agency Relations Coordinator, recognizes that
buying local produce helps farmers, helps the food
bank, and is better for their hungry clients. Out of a
total 90 staff members, about 30 are involved in fresh
produce distribution.
Gleaners runs several fresh produce programs: the
Fresh Food Program, their DTE Energy Gardens,
a gleaning program, Cooking Matters classes, and
various pantry programs. The agency also donated ¾
of an acre of food bank land to Earthworks to operate
a farm that grows 14,000 pounds of fresh food
annually. Around 90% of the harvest goes directly to
the Capuchin Soup Kitchen.
A collaboration between Gleaners and the Fair Food
Network, Greening of Detroit, and Eastern Market,
the Fresh Food Program, a Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA) weekly food box program that
purchases mainly from Michigan farmers, grew
out of a noticeable dearth of supermarkets and
the high price of produce in the city. Initially, the
program targeted a single area of Detroit, but has
since expanded operations to distribute over 12,000
pounds annually to over 20 sites citywide, including
churches, schools, and health centers. Partner
agencies coordinate orders for fresh produce boxes,
which are delivered to agencies once a month. Large
(30 lbs. for $24) and small boxes (20 lbs. for $14) and
a fruit box (10 lbs. for $14) are available, and each
site must have a minimum of 10 orders to qualify
for delivery. Produce is 75-100% Michigan-grown,
depending on the season.
Gleaners accepts food stamps and offers “doubleup food bucks” for Michigan-grown produce. Some
farmers set aside produce or plan for the program
when planting. Customers range from nurses and
doctors to call center employees, and there is a waiting
list of sites. However, the three-year grant funding the
program ended in January 2012 and Gleaners does not
have the resources to expand the program.
Four years ago, DTE Energy approached Gleaners with
the idea of starting donation gardens on DTE Energy
sites. Gleaners funds a staff position for managing
all of the garden sites. All harvested produce goes to
the Gleaners warehouse or is directly distributed to
member agencies that are located close to a garden
site. The program has low overhead and is considered
to be a great success so far.
Gleaners also participates in Cooking Matters, a statefunded, 6-week program that teaches participants
how to cook and use raw vegetables. Chefs hired by
the food bank host the classes at member agency sites.
A mobile pantry program operates out of schools,
churches, and community centers and distributes dry
boxes of food and fresh produce to clients. School
distributions are free and directed toward families
enrolled in the reduced lunch program.
Distributing produce quickly and finding methods
of distribution that will prolong produce life are two
major challenges for Gleaners. Moreover, member
agencies are hesitant to accept the less familiar fruits
and vegetables, and the food bank is sometimes faced
with trying to convince these agencies to accept
donations. Gleaners staff members expressed optimism
that the national trend of interest in local produce and
fresh food will spur growth of the food bank’s fresh
produce programs. Detroit is an important center of
urban agriculture, and Michigan has a rich and diverse
agricultural base. However, fresh produce distribution
programs’ reliance on grant support raises concerns
about the long-term financial sustainability of such
programs at Gleaners and other food banks.
14
GLEANING
The overwhelming majority of fresh fruits and
vegetables sourced directly from local farmers to
food banks comes from gleaning and is highly
concentrated in several large programs. Six state and
multi-state programs linked to commercial growers
account for four-fifths (80%) of all the produce we
tallied at 116 programs:
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to Family program, which accounts for 46% of all the
produce we counted (127 million out of 274 million
pounds). The program pays large commercial
growers at cost to keep their workers in the fields
and warehouses longer, picking and packing fruits
and vegetables that they otherwise would not harvest
and sell. The growers truck this food directly to food
banks around the state. The program has produced
reports intended for use by others interested in
replicating such work.
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of food banks in Arizona, Ohio, and Texas. Some
of these associations are working with Feeding
America, the trade organization of large food banks
in the U.S., to promote replication in other states.
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Hunger, started by the Second Harvest Food Bank
of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Farm Bureau
in California, distributes fresh produce to food
15
assistance programs on the West Coast. Like the
programs above, it works with commercial growers
and shippers. Ag Against Hunger also organizes
volunteers to glean commercial fields.
t
ćF 4PDJFUZ PG 4U "OESFX UIF PMEFTU PG
these large gleaning organizations, operates a large
network of regionally based gleaning across the
South, especially in the Southeast, but also in the
Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. In 2012, it marshaled
close to 38 million volunteers, many from churches,
to harvest participating farmers’ fields and pack
produce for shipment to food banks and other
feeding organizations. The Society of St. Andrew’s
Potato and Produce Project distributes throughout
the continental U.S.
Other statewide produce gleaning programs exist in
Arkansas, Colorado, and Kentucky, and others are
presently in the planning stages. Statewide and local
networks of hunters, such as Hunters for the Hungry,
also supply food banks and allied organizations with
meat harvested locally, typically venison (though
we did not include meat in our summary analysis).
The Venison Donation Coalition of New York, for
example, has provided over 337 tons of meat to food
relief in the state since 1999.
Some individual food banks also operate their own
This pattern is shared with other food banks in other
mostly-wealthy suburban counties, where, compared
to big cities, food banks and allied organizations
supply a larger share of fresh produce to the smaller
proportion of area residents in need (see also the
Chester County Food Bank profiled in the farming
section below).
large gleaning programs tied to big commercial
agriculture, accounting for a substantial proportion
of the total food they distribute. For example, the
East Texas Food Bank and the San Antonio Food
Bank each glean from area growers, the latter at
their packinghouses. Some food banks in Texas have
also received large donations from their local beef
industry.
Some smaller food banks in rural regions and in the
suburbs of major metropolitan areas acquire a larger
proportion of their total food from local farmers and
produce brokers:
t
0VUTJEF /FX :PSL $JUZ UIF 'PPE #BOL GPS
Westchester gleaned some 773,000 pounds of fruits
and vegetables, amounting to 12% of all the food it
distributed.
t
*TMBOE)BSWFTUPO-POH*TMBOEBDRVJSFETPNF
1.8 million pounds from local farmers, which made
up 22% of its total food distribution.
t
ćF 7FSNPOU 'PPE #BOL IBSWFTUFE pounds of mainly fruits from orchards and organizes
a state-wide gleaning program that accounts for 3.6%
of all food distributed.
At many food banks, gleaning is one among several
complementary strategies to source fresh produce;
and gleaning itself takes multiple forms that constitute
distinct streams of food – most commonly, harvested
and packed by farmworkers or volunteers, or acquired
at the close of farmers markets. For example, the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank gleaned
117,670 pounds of vegetables and fruits directly from
farms; and it pairs affiliated cupboards and other
member organizations with farmers markets where
farmers donate what they do not sell (these donations
are often unmeasured). The St. Mary’s Food Bank
Alliance in Flagstaff receives gleaned produce from
the Association of Arizona Food Banks; and it also
runs its own Citrus Gleaners program in which
tree owners register and pay a small fee to the food
bank for gleaning, mainly in home gardens. A local
commercial grower, Sun Orchards, processes this
citrus, about 800,000 pounds, into juice. The Food
Bank of Santa Barbara, California, receives millions
of pounds from the Farm to Family and Ag Against
Hunger programs, in addition to organizing harvest
events with volunteers in its Backyard Bounty
program, which yielded over 140,000 pounds. The
food bank distributes some of this food through
mobile farmers markets as well as cupboards and
schools.
Most gleaning programs are supported by
philanthropy, which covers some of their costs,
though when programs pay growers for harvesting,
packing, and shipping, most food banks pass on
that cost (commonly 30 to 40 cents per pound) to
cupboards and other member agencies distributing to
poor people. Some food banks and other distributors
of food relief do not pass on that cost, distributing
gleaned (and first pick) produce they purchase from
farmers to cupboards and other constituents free of
charge.
Finally, smaller nonprofit gleaning organizations in
16
some cities and regions distribute mainly fruit to food
banks and their affiliates. They typically organize
volunteers to harvest from home-based gardens and
sometimes from commercial orchards. They glean
from an overlapping but often-distinct set of growers
from the bigger programs, including those at most
food banks. Their yields are usually small, but in at
least two cases amount to hundreds of thousands of
pounds. Three of these groups, Village Harvest in San
Jose (over 200,000 pounds), Food Forward in Los
Angeles (about 350,000 pounds), and the Portland
Fruit Tree Project (40,000 pounds in 2011, over
67,000 in 2012), are profiled in case studies below.
Despite their similarities, these nonprofits’
organizational models differ. Village Harvest is
entirely volunteer-run, organizing other volunteers
and connecting with homeowners in the South Bay,
many of whose homes were built on tracts that were
once commercial citrus groves. Food Forward has a
full-time staff of six people who organize school and
corporate retreats and other events for a fee. Both
organizations glean from backyard growers and small
commercial orchards. The Portland Fruit Tree Project
has grown to three staff – one is an AmeriCorps
volunteer – and supports backyard fruit growers and
community orchards in addition to gleaning and fruit
preservation events. Similar programs gleaning back
(and front) yard fruit trees and small commercial
orchards exist in other cities and metropolitan regions
of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
Some programs that glean for food banks (organizing
volunteers like Village Harvest and the Portland Fruit
Tree Project) have been established through urban
agriculture support organizations that are connected
to community gardens and small urban and suburban
farms. Although they do not yield large volumes of
produce compared to the total amounts of food that
food banks distribute, they often address other food
system challenges beyond gleaning for food relief.
These programs include the New Orleans Fruit Tree
Project (10,000 pounds of mainly citrus in 2012),
founded and run by an AmeriCorps volunteer at the
Hollygrove Market and Farm. Harvest Sacramento
(40,000 pounds in 2011, 53,000 in 2012) is one of
many production, distribution, and market programs
at Soil Born Farms Urban Agriculture and Education
Project. Many smaller gleaning programs contribute
17
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, CA
to cupboards, youth programs, or other communitybased settings, rather than passing it through the
food bank’s warehouse where it is more likely to be
weighed and tallied. Urban agriculture organizations
often focus more on supporting food production,
markets, and other formal and informal communitybased distribution of fruits and vegetables that tackle
other problems of community food security including
but well beyond how much produce moves through
food relief organizations. Many of these initiatives –
those tied to food banks – are profiled in the following
sections on gardening and farming.
Top 10 Food Banks -- Gleaning (lbs. harvested)
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties*
22,000,000
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance**
7,350,339
East Texas Food Bank***
5,500,000
Mid-Ohio Food Bank
4,000,000
3,800,000
3,700,000
Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County*
2,796,096
Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona**
2-3,000,000
2,452,150
2,372,293
Table 6
* This figure overlaps with those from the Farm to Family program and Ag Against Hunger, as
the food bank sources most of its gleaned produce from these two programs.
**This figure overlaps with those from the Association of Arizona Food Banks, as the food
bank sources most of its gleaned produce from the Arizona Gleaning Project.
*** This figure overlaps with those from the Texas Food Bank Network, which contributes a
significant portion of the food bank’s produce through the Texans Feeding Texans program.
Top State Associations of Food Banks and Multi-State
Programs -- Gleaning (lbs. harvested)
California Association of Food Banks
127,000,000
Society of St. Andrew's
26,900,000
Ohio Association of Food Banks
26,000,000
Association of Arizona Food Banks
18,563,139
Texas Food Bank Network
13,000,000
Ag Against Hunger
8,400,000
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance
1,200,000
Feeding Colorado
Kentucky Association of Food Banks
1,000,000
984,865
Table 7
18
CASE STUDY
Village Harvest
Joni Ohta Diserens founded Village Harvest in 2001
with the mission of providing food for the hungry
while promoting sustainable use of urban resources,
particularly the fruit trees from earlier orchards
that still stand amidst residential subdivisions
in California’s Santa Clara Valley. Starting as an
informal project linking the Master Gardeners, 4H
Club, and the Valley of Heart’s Delight project of
the Foundation for Global Community in Palo Alto,
Village Harvest has evolved into an organization
that manages regular harvest teams from San Jose
and neighboring communities. Volunteers, using a
combination of hand picking, pickers, ladders, and a
homemade chute, pick neighborhood fruit trees 3-5
times a week and donate the harvest to food relief
organizations. Now led by Executive Director Craig
Diserens, the organization also provides education
on fruit tree care, harvesting and food preservation.
Craig estimates that 10-40 million pounds of
fruit go to waste in Santa Clara County backyards
annually. Village Harvest volunteers save 200,000
to 300,000 pounds from going to waste each year.
231,000 pounds were picked in 2012, and in 2011
the largest donations totaled 40,000 pounds.
Harvest fruit is donated to 15 different hunger relief
organizations (HROs), with the Second Harvest
Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties
receiving around one quarter of all donations. Three
thousand volunteers are involved with the gleaning
organization, and 3,000 homes have been offered for
picking. However, due to volunteer time constraints,
only 500 homes can realistically be picked per year.
While homeowners offer myriad types of fruit trees
for picking, oranges are by far the largest harvest at
around 50,000 pounds annually.
Village Harvest builds short, efficient supply chains,
choosing picking sites and routes based on their
proximity to a specific food bank or other agency.
Craig has developed strong relationships with the
HROs to which Village Harvest donates, beginning
by simply asking if the organization needed any
19
fruit. Many HROs now offer their own vans to Village
Harvest for produce transportation, even giving
the gleaning organization keys to their facilities so
harvests can be delivered on weekends. To avoid
over-picking and waste, Village Harvest confers with
its partners to determine how much they can store
and distribute. The perishability of fruit and HROs’
limited refrigerated storage space remain the greatest
challenges and limits to their work.
Through 2012, Village Harvest was an all-volunteer
organization, supported by a $25,000 yearly budget
and the generosity of volunteer staff and harvesters
ranging from stay-at-home mothers to retirees to
young students. With a background in software
engineering, Craig constructed and customized the
website and volunteer database. In-kind donations
included some of the harvesting equipment used
and a new van. Homeowners offering their trees for
picking are also encouraged to make a small donation
to Village Harvest.
As of March 2013, Village Harvest has two paid staff
members (one part-time and one full-time). Their
web site lists a large number of gleaning organizations,
mainly in the western United States, and Craig dreams
their work will ignite a national network of gleaning
organizations.
“Village Harvest operates strategically to ensure that its limited resources are used efficiently. Picking sites
and routes are chosen based on their proximity to a specific food bank or food distribution agency.”
Village Harvest, CA
20
CASE STUDY
Second Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties
“Local produce” takes on a different meaning in
Silicon Valley, the heart of commercial fruit and
vegetable farming in the USA. As explained by
Diane Zapata, Senior Manager of Food Resources,
the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and
San Mateo Counties aims to improve nutrition and
eliminate waste, and views fresh produce distribution
as a way to achieve both goals. When it first began
incorporating fresh produce into its distribution
stream, the food bank had a goal of making fresh
produce comprise 50% of its total distributed food;
Second Harvest has already met that goal. In 2011,
the food bank distributed 25 million pounds of fresh
produce out of a total food distribution of 50 million
pounds. Over 90% of this fresh produce came from
the California Association of Food Banks’ “Farmto-Family” program. The statewide organization
solicits fresh produce from farmers, and each food
bank pays the association for any freight and valueadded processing fees. The rest comes from Village
Harvest and other, smaller donations.
Most of the Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo’s
300 member agencies receive some fresh produce. In
addition, the food bank has invested in 24 produce
mobiles that crisscross its service area. These mobiles
act as modified farmers markets at each participating
member agency site. At a minimum, each site needs
a parking lot, but many sites use schools or churches
for the produce distribution. Member agencies sign
up for the program and an in-house nutritionist
puts together a diverse and healthful supply of fresh
produce. Volunteers, along with the nutritionist,
staff the produce mobiles. Between July 2011 and
February 2012, produce mobiles delivered 2,654,341
pounds to food insecure people.
The food bank has made substantial investments in
infrastructure and staff to support fresh fruit and
vegetable distribution. It has created produce hubs
that move perishable fruits and vegetables quickly
between producer and partner agencies. Five food
hubs currently exist in San Mateo County, allowing
21
member agencies to quickly pick up available
produce and thus to deliver better product to their
constituencies.
The food bank has also hired more nutritionists to
ease the transition and to address related challenges
of offering new foods for member agencies. Currently,
Diane estimates that 80% of her time is dedicated to
fresh produce distribution, and her team is all certified
to handle fresh produce. To improve its operations
further, the organization worked with “produce guru”
Frank Bonner at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix,
Arizona to learn more about adapting fresh produce
to food bank operations.
The Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara offers
infrastructure grants to member agencies so that
their facilities can begin to accommodate perishable
products. Grants from Kaiser Permanente, other
funders, and the donation of a new building dedicated
solely to the distribution of fresh produce have
enabled this work.
Initial resistance to the produce mobile program and
managing member agency expectations presented
two major challenges for the food bank. But with
the help of nutritionists, member agency staff are
becoming more educated and open to fresh produce
and seasonal variations. Irregular and unpredictable
volunteers also pose a problem when the food bank
is trying to distribute produce quickly; the Volunteer
Services Department is starting to work more closely
with Diane to improve operations. Moreover, similar
to many other hunger relief organizations, the food
bank is still trying to discern the actual capacity of
many member agencies to avoid potential inundation.
The food bank created a “produce planning tool”
to try to capture the actual demand and to forecast
produce minimums and maximums. Diane imagines
an upward, but slowly stabilizing, growth trajectory
for the food bank’s fresh produce distribution.
“Initial resistance to the produce mobile program and managing member agency expectations are two major
challenges...but with the diligence of nutritionists, member agency staff are becoming more educated and open to
fresh produce and seasonal variations.”
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, CA
22
CASE STUDY
Food Forward
Rick Nahmias founded Food Forward in 2009 after
working with and documenting migrant workers
in California. Realizing that most workers cannot
afford the produce they are picking, he vowed to help
change the food system. Food Forward’s mission is
to harvest backyard fruit for the hungry. The first
volunteers, recruited from Craigslist and the local
chapter of the Slow Food movement, identified a
local food bank that would accept fresh backyard
produce, and a passionate, four-person core team
of gleaners was born. Over the following two years,
the organization remained exclusively volunteerrun, increasing their volunteer numbers along the
way. In 2011, the organization was able to hire their
first staff members through a grant from the Durfee
Foundation. The grant also funded the construction
of the organization’s current website, which includes
a web-based program that enables volunteers to
register trees. Food Forward currently has far more
registered trees than they can feasibly pick, a list
of 5,000 volunteers, and 50 partner agencies. All
partner agencies are required to have appropriate
refrigeration, 501(c)(3) status and the ability to pick
up the harvested food. Food Forward averages 30
– 40 picking events each month and has harvested
1.3 million pounds of fruit, most of which is citrus,
since its founding in 2009.
Picks, or fruit tree harvest events, are the main focus
of Food Forward’s work. A Super Volunteer or Pick
Leader will lead a pick on weekends and evenings,
and weekday picks have recently been added to the
schedule to accommodate retirees and others with
flexible schedules. Before each pick, staff confirms
the location and available harvest of each tree. All
fruit is donated to hunger relief organizations, with
the exception of a small percentage of lemons that
are kept for fruit preserving activities. On organized
Canning Days, fruit is preserved and prepared for
sale on the Food Forward website and in local cafes.
In addition to picks, the organization recently
initiated the Farmers Market Recovery Program,
23
collecting unsold produce from markets and
distributing it to partner agencies. By August 2013,
the program will expand to collections from nine
markets. Adding to the total fresh fruit poundage
are four wholesale distributors who, when they
have surplus produce, are connected through Food
Forward to partner agencies for direct donation.
Funding for the new farmers market gleaning
program comes from family foundations, and a recent
grant has enabled Food Forward to hire a software
engineer to build a volunteer database. The majority
of the organization’s operating budget comes from
family and corporate foundations, supplemented by a
few fundraising events. In-kind donations of graphic
design, printing, discounted rent, and boxes (donated
by International Paper and emblazoned with the Food
Forward logo) help keep the agency running. Meg,
the Managing Director, believes the organization
is currently financially stable but is always looking
to diversify the revenue streams and expand social
enterprise programs that generate money for the
organization. One of these is Food Forward’s Private
Picks for school, corporate, or other groups, which
it markets as an alternative to a traditional company
picnic or birthday party.
Much like other nonprofit gleaning organizations,
Food Forward faces significant challenges to its
operations, particularly as it begins to scale up its
programs. Transportation has been a persistent
challenge for the organization, and there has been
some difficulty in getting participating agencies
to pick up an allocated harvest. Calculating the
appropriate number of volunteers to work a harvest
has also been a hurdle, as volunteers do not always
show up to the pick events.
Food Forward has been actively sharing best practices
with similar organizations, and Meg is a member
of the Los Angeles Food Policy Task Force. Meg
imagines expanding within Los Angeles County and
deepening their work in areas where they are already
“Food Forward currently has far more registered trees than they can feasibly pick, a list of 5,000 volunteers,
and 50 partner agencies.”
working. She is looking forward to reaping the full potential of the farmers market and wholesale market programs
and building relationships with local producers.
Food Forward, CA
24
CASE STUDY
Portland Fruit Tree Project
In 2006, Portland resident Katy Kolker noticed just
how much fruit was going to waste throughout
the city. In a place where fruit trees are ubiquitous
in yards, city parks, and even at times as street
tree plantings, Katy saw that a clear connection
could be made between unpicked fruit and people
with limited access to affordable food. In 2007 the
Portland Fruit Tree Project was officially established,
presenting what Katy terms “a unique urban twist
on traditional gleaning.” Her vision is to see a time
when all of Portland’s fruit trees are fully utilized
and shared with the community.
To achieve this vision, PFTP offers four programs:
harvesting from residential fruit trees; founding
and management of community orchards; tree care
education and skills training for fruit tree owners;
and a food preservation workshop series. The last
three programs are meant to complement each
other and to support the main harvest program. The
community orchard program was started in 2010
with the Sabin Community Orchard, established on
unused, city-owned land in the northeast quadrant
of the city. Trained volunteers manage the orchard,
while community volunteers participate in working
parties in which PFTP provides expert technical
assistance and training on tree care. PFTP also
maintains the Green Thumb Community Orchard,
a one-acre orchard in the southeast quadrant, and
it is currently in the process of establishing a new
community orchard in north Portland.
The tree care program likewise started in 2010,
providing education and skills training for fruit
tree owners, in addition to providing tree care
service to owners. This grew out of the need for
tree maintenance across the city. The goals of these
programs are to enhance skills and resources in the
community for tree care, improving and securing
harvest potential. PFTP also hosts a Community
Food Forest next to the office, which is managed by a
core group of volunteers and produces approximately
500 pounds of food annually.
25
The harvest program is the main focus of the
organization; and unlike most gleaning programs it
deliberately involves people who are experiencing
food insecurity in the act of harvesting. PFTP
registers fruit tree owners and harvests fruit when
owners do not want or cannot harvest any more. There
are two types of harvest events – “harvesting parties,”
in which half of the volunteer spots are reserved for
low-income individuals or those living with food
insecurity; and “group harvests,” which are arranged
in partnership with other organizations serving
low-income or food-insecure populations, and are
attended solely by groups of these organizations’
clients. The number of harvest parties and poundage
of fruit has increased significantly every year, starting
with 8 harvests in 2007 and rising to 88 in 2012. In
2011, 551 people participated in harvests and gleaned
approximately 40,000 pounds of fruit. Fifty-three
percent of those harvesters were from low-income
households. In 2012, PFTP harvested 67,000 pounds
of fruit in its 88 harvest parties. Katy sees a lot of
potential to harvest more trees; the staff, interns, and
volunteers are always striving to do as many harvests
as possible. She emphasizes the empowerment that
comes from teaching people how to pick their own
fruit and take charge over food insecurity.
Harvested fruit is distributed 50-50 between
participants and food pantries. Participants generally
take home about 5 pounds per person, and the
remaining fruit is brought directly to one of 4 or 5
food pantries with which PFTP has established a
relationship. Partners are chosen based on their
capacity to store and distribute fruit without spoilage,
and there is at least one partner in each quadrant
of the city. PFTP also distributes to other types of
partners, including a backpack lunch program for
local elementary schools; food pantries with capacity
to distribute only small amounts of fresh fruit; and
occasionally to Urban Gleaners, which gleans from
grocery stores, farmers markets, and businesses and
distributes to local schools.
“Katy attributes volunteer interest in the programs mainly to the need for the program – the straightforward
approach of gleaning and donating just makes sense to their volunteers.”
Volunteers play a key role in this small organization.
PFTP has two full-time staff, including Katy as
Executive Director, and a program coordinator. Katy
has experience in permaculture, and is passionate
about social equity and environmental resources,
food justice, and access to healthy foods. Her decision
to focus on trees was based on their abundance as a
resource in Portland. Bob, programs coordinator, has
a degree in leadership and ecology, and worked with
gardening and agriculture programs throughout
Portland before coming to PFTP. The organization
recently took on a full-time AmeriCorps volunteer
who coordinates the expansion of the community
orchard program. Outside of coordinating, which is
done by staff, most of the PFTP’s work is done by
volunteers. There are 90 people in leadership roles
for tree registrations, tree care, and the preservation
workshop series. Each program has a thorough
training system for the 1,000 leaders and volunteers
who participated in and led workshops, work parties
at the community orchard, harvests, and fundraising
events.
When she started the organization, PFTP was one of
the only groups with such a program, but in their first
few years they received many inquiries from people
in other cities who were interested in starting similar
programs, one of which became the New Orleans
Fruit Tree Project. Katy admits that they have an
advantage in the high visibility that food access issues
have in Portland, and they are lucky to have a good
climate for fruit trees, but she also believes that with
good volunteer coordination, a small program is quite
possible to run in other settings.
PFTP plans to continue increasing its harvest in the
future, with a goal of 10-15% expansion of harvests
set for 2013. Future focus areas for the organization
are in creating a more advanced tree care team so that
they can engage with another tier of advanced and
knowledgeable volunteers; growing the community
orchards program; and expanding harvests at large
orchards.
Katy attributes volunteer interest in the programs
mainly to the need for the program – the
straightforward approach of gleaning and donating
just makes sense to their volunteers. And the
harvests are fun for participants, offering a chance
to meet people of different backgrounds, and
people want to keep the fruit they harvest. Katy also
describes a general interest in Portland in urban
foraging and gleaning; the harvest events offer a way
to do these things under the umbrella of an official
organization. And for tree owners, PFTP provides
a valuable service. Many of the owners are simply
sick of the fruit by the end of the season, and the
harvest parties provide a way to get rid of the fruit,
and provide cleanup and tree maintenance, without
the owner having to make the effort on their own.
PFTP has a budget of $140,000, with the majority
of funding spent on the harvest program, and Katy
is confident that this program is very replicable.
A Portland Fruit Tree Project “Harvest Party,” Portland, OR
26
GARDENING
Food banks’ gardening programs most often fall into
one or more of three categories:
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their warehouses but also at other sites. Food bank
staff organize volunteers to maintain and harvest
from the gardens. Sometimes these are organized
as demonstration and teaching gardens or as
community gardens where individual plot-holders
donate a portion of their harvest to the food bank.
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banks and other organizations, in which home
and community gardeners (and farmers) plant
and harvest rows or plots of food to donate to the
food bank and/or affiliated cupboards and feeding
organizations.
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become the main garden support organization,
supplying materials such as seedlings, compost,
and raised beds, as well as technical assistance and
educational programming for community, school,
and home gardens and gardeners.
Eastside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR
27
Many food banks and affiliated feeding organizations
benefit from two programs that link gardeners to
food relief organizations nationwide:
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Plant-A-Row for the Hungry program has tallied over
18 million pounds of fresh produce for food relief since
1995, an average of more than one million pounds per
year. Garden writers and radio hosts encourage readers
and listeners to plant, tend, and harvest a row in their
gardens for hunger relief organizations. The program
trains and supports committees of volunteers who
promote local gardening and coordinate collection
for donation (and weighing) of harvest.
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email industry and community garden director in
New Jersey, is a virtual organization with a web site
and smartphone apps that match gardeners in all 50
states with more than 5,000 food pantries, including
personalized driving directions. It collaborates on
outreach with master gardeners, USDA, Feeding
America, AARP, and the National Council of
Churches. In 2011, Ample Harvest recorded close to
15 million pounds.
Eastside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR
Food banks also operate their own grow-a-row
programs in their city and region, and these are
often combined with food banks’ own production,
community, and teaching gardens. Representative
and outlier examples of such programs run by food
banks include:
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Rock established a quarter-acre community garden in
2010, where volunteers harvested some 4,000 pounds
in 2011 that was distributed through the food bank.
Pantry operators and other community members also
harvested vegetables directly, though this food was
not tallied. This scale and organization of production
and distribution is common among food banks’ own
gardens, especially those planted recently.
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in Kansas City, Missouri, runs its own garden and
partners with a network of gardens and garden centers
for harvest and distribution, which together with a
separate donation program yielded nearly 40,000
pounds in 2011. This mix of sources is also common,
and the yield is the median (the mean average is
143,000 pounds) among food banks’ gardening
programs.
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Spokane, Washington, boasts the nation’s largest
Plant-A-Row program run through a food bank,
counting almost 285,000 pounds in 2011, including
donations from gardeners, farmers, and farmers
markets.
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Oklahoma City maintains edible landscapes on its
grounds and runs the Urban Harvest education
program whose harvest (about 1,700 pounds in 2011)
goes to elementary school students and afterschool
programs. Such programs complement the backpack
programs that are nearly ubiquitous at food banks in
the U.S.
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operates a larger and more diverse set of three gardens,
from which it counted over 75,000 pounds of fresh
produce: the 2.5 acre GrassRoots Garden, with a city
compost demonstration site, outdoor kitchen, and
workshops by food bank staff and master gardeners;
a 3.5 acre youth farm, home to the food bank’s teen
job skills program which operates a CSA and two
produce stands; and a 1-acre community garden
where neighbors and students from several nearby
schools grow and learn about food.
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the Oregon Food Bank in Portland are profiled in a
case study below.
As the teaching gardens above suggest, many food
banks have expanded their promotion and direct
support of home, community, and school gardening.
Programs that reflect the range of activities and sites
include:
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home gardeners – some 4,000 in 2011, the program’s
first year – with training and materials, including a
seed library at the warehouse and community-based
seed banks.
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over 100 community gardens linked to cupboards
and other community-based organizations. The food
bank helps find land and organize neighbors to start
gardens, in addition to supplying seeds, tilling, tools,
and volunteers for garden maintenance and harvest
days. The Tapestry WIC garden is the only garden
where harvest is recorded (over 106,000 pounds in
2011).
28
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DC, connects experienced and aspiring gardeners
to material and technical support via its web site as
well as its own programs, which are profiled in a case
study in the farming section below
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Michigan, partners with churches and the local
housing authority to expand and support community
gardening and connect it to food relief. It is also
profiled in a case study below.
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in a case study in the farming section, has helped
build and support school gardens and allied farm-toschool programs in the poorest districts of the county.
As noted above, the harvest from the gardening
programs discussed in this section is difficult to
measure, as it often goes uncounted by dispersed
home and community gardeners. Fieldwork by us and
other scholars has demonstrated that gardeners’ yields
vary widely, but that overall community gardeners
contribute substantially to networks of formal and
informal food distribution, including in communities
experiencing high levels of food insecurity. From our
interviews, however, it is clear that more research
is needed for food banks to evaluate and track the
impacts of their community, school, and home-based
garden support programs.
Our national scan and interviews do make clear that
community, school, and home-based garden support
programs (and some farming programs) are changing
food banks’ roles in community food systems.
Food bank staff reported that garden support and
education are among their most popular programs,
often helping to catalyze people’s deeper involvement
in food production, donation, and support of food
banks and other more or less organized forms of food
relief. This includes both middle class volunteers and
poor people who regularly seek food assistance at
cupboards. Gardening programs are no replacement
for the commodity surplus programs, volunteer
support, and donations, as gardening has not scaled
up to meet the vast demand for food assistance (as it
did for example in the Victory Gardens programs of
World Wars One and Two). Gardening at a large scale
is also not a realistic strategy for many people who are
food insecure, so should not be viewed as a substitute
for current food relief systems. But programs that
train and support food insecure people in growing
their own food help to build individuals’, households’,
and communities’ capacity to meet at least some of
their own food needs. Surely, this represents a more
lasting investment in community food security than
the commodity surplus programs.
Top 10 Food Banks -- Gardening (lbs. harvested)
287,067
Second Harvest Inland Northwest
287,067
Atlanta Community Food Bank
110,292
Oregon Food Bank
92,000
Food Bank of Northeast Georgia
89,867
Community Food Bank of New Jersey
82,382
Food for Lane County
75,250
Harvesters - The Community Food Network
37,840
30,213
Food Bank for Larimer County
29,475
Table 8
29
CASE STUDY
As described by Chief Program Officer Missy Orge
and CEO Eileen Spring, Food Gatherers in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, is committed to providing diverse
food streams that include fresh produce as a way to
improve clients’ food security. Fresh produce sourcing
began in response to client demand for more fresh
foods. The food bank now operates a farm, gleaning
program, and a Faith and Food program, while an
on-site nutritionist educates member agencies and
clients about fresh produce storage and usage. At
the inception of these programs, only one-fifth of
member agencies had the capacity to distribute fresh
produce, but now, as a result of Food Gatherer’s
capacity grants, around one half of member agencies
are sufficiently equipped.
Food Gatherers’ half-acre farm has been in
operation since 2009 and is run by Farm Manager
Dan Calderone, a former operations staff member.
Volunteers help maintain and harvest the farm.
Originally funded by a grant from Pfizer, farm
operations are now incorporated into the food
bank’s general budget. Food Gatherers has explored
options for scaling up farm operations, working
with the University of Michigan Business School to
consider costs and benefits, but in the end the costs of
increasing operations have proven too great to move
forward.
The food bank’s operations include purchasing directly
from local farmers, in addition to large companies
and wholesalers. Food Gatherers also participates
in Michigan’s nascent Farm-to-Food Bank program,
run by the Food Bank Council of Michigan, and
Michigan’s Agricultural Surplus Program, as a way to
increase their distribution of fresh produce.
a few churches deliver directly to member agencies,
the food bank prefers to act as intermediary, ensuring
equity of distribution and preventing individual
agencies from being overwhelmed with produce. The
religious community has embraced the program, and
the minimal infrastructure involved has meant the
program has been easy to maintain.
In 2009, Food Gatherers received Pfizer’s Big Idea
Grant, which has funded most of its local agriculture
and fresh produce programs. The food bank also
receives other donations that help sustain each
program. Food Gatherers’ greatest challenges in these
programs include the pressure of time sensitivity
in fresh produce distribution and the capacity of
member agencies to receive, store, and distribute it
to clients. Also, although the food bank continues
to seek new sources of fresh produce, many local
farmers cannot provide the desired large scale of
donations. Furthermore, because many local farmers
operate on a CSA model, it is hard for the food bank
to offer competitive prices for their produce. Yet
Food Gatherers is optimistic about the future of their
fresh produce distribution programs, and envisions
working closely with a newly-opened food enterprise
incubator; starting a farm box program similar to that
of Gleaners Community Food Bank in nearby Detroit;
connecting additional Faith and Food congregations
with farmers who want to donate land; and focusing
on the nutrition and public health implications of
providing clients with fresh produce.
Food Gatherers partners with
the botanical
gardens to grow starter plants for Faith and Food, a
program that encourages churches to grow for the
food bank. About 30 churches are now involved,
harvesting their gardens and dropping off 50% of
their produce at Food Gatherers’ warehouse. While
30
CASE STUDY
Oregon Food Bank
The Oregon Food Bank (OFB) is the largest food
relief organization in the state, distributing food to
945 partner agencies through a network of 4 branches
and 16 independent regional food banks. To achieve
its vision of everyone having access to an ample,
nutritious, affordable and appropriate food supply
through traditional, nonemergency channels, OFB
focuses on what gardening staff describe as two sides
of their mission – to provide emergency food relief,
and to address the root causes of food insecurity.
About five years ago, while searching for food
sources, the food bank’s food research developers
realized that OFB’s location in a major agricultural
area offered the opportunity to connect farmers
and producers with the food bank, and therefore
to people in need. This led to the development of a
series of programs aimed at providing fresh produce
for food bank clients, and to education programs
focused on fresh food production and nutrition.
OFB operates three programs related to fresh
foods: Farmers Ending Hunger; Plant-A-Row; and
the Learning Gardens Program. Through Farmers
Ending Hunger, OFB sources produce grown
for donation from farmers throughout the state,
distributing different types of produce to provide a
wide variety of fresh produce to each of its branches
and regional food banks, over 950,000 pounds each
year. The Plant-A-Row program links individual
gardeners interested in donating their excess
produce directly to partner agencies. Rather than
acting as intermediary between gardeners and food
pantries, OFB hopes that gardeners will develop
relationships with partner agencies and become
involved in their other activities. In addition, OFB
encourages partner agencies to register with Ample
Harvest, the national online registry that home
gardeners can use to identify hunger relief agencies
that accept produce donations. Staff estimates that
partner agencies in the two Portland metro-area
branches receive 80,000 pounds of fresh produce
each year through Plant-A-Row and Ample Harvest
donations.
31
The Learning Gardens offer two programs intended
to counteract the root causes of hunger: Seed to
Supper and Dig In! Seed to Supper, run in partnership
with the Oregon State University Extension Service,
was founded in 2007 as a mobile, 5-week beginner
gardening series for adults, with lecture-style classes
taught indoors and the ability to bring lessons outside
if the class site has garden space. Classes are volunteertaught, and are hosted at community centers, senior
homes, and affordable housing developments. OFB
matches volunteers, participants, and class sites, and
also serves as curriculum developer, trainer, and
logistics coordinator. OFB also partners with local
correctional facilities to allow prisoners in the system
to fulfill a requirement in the Master Gardener
certification program through nonprofits such as the
Lettuce Grow Garden Foundation.
The Dig In! volunteer program is a hands-on servicelearning opportunity based at two Learning Gardens
in the Portland area. The Eastside Learning Garden
is next to OFB’s main distribution warehouse in
northeast Portland, and the Westside Learning
Garden is on the site of an environmental and
science middle school in Beaverton, just outside city.
Together, the two gardens use less than 0.5 acres and
yield an estimated 17,000 pounds of fresh produce per
year. The bulk of the harvest goes into the emergency
food system, although the goal of the gardens is not to
produce, but to educate.
The Eastside Learning Garden was established in
2002 and was originally intended to teach Portland
residents facing food insecurity a variety of methods
for producing their own food. However, only a
handful of food bank clients are able to participate in
the garden because of its location, in an industrial area
behind the Portland airport, which is challenging to
access via public transportation. While staff originally
used an elaborate tracking system to determine how
many garden volunteers were from low-income
households, to avoid placing a stigma on low-income
participants they abandoned the system and now
“The Learning Gardens involve volunteers in every step of the gardening process. Volunteers plan the garden
spaces in the winter, start seeds in the spring, and harvest crops in the summer and fall.”
allow all interested volunteers to participate. cipate.
The Learning Gardens involve volunteers in every
step of the gardening process: planning the garden
spaces in the winter, starting seeds in the spring, and
harvesting crops in the summer and fall. The Gardens
comprise a number of large, production-style rows
and a series of demonstration gardens that show how
people can configure small yard spaces in a variety
of garden shapes to maximize food production.
In 2007 the Eastside Learning Garden doubled in
size, and in 2011 staff added a greenhouse to start
seedlings. In 2012, 4,200 plants from the greenhouse
were distributed to partner agencies, and staff are
working on new ways to connect partner agencies
to the gardens through targeted marketing of their
garden starts.
At the Westside Learning Garden, during the
school year each middle school class completes a
rotation of class time in the garden, planting seeds,
weeding, and composting, and learning about
food production with a range of crops that can be
harvested throughout the year. OFB staff highlight
the meaningful links the students are able to make
between the food they help produce and how their
donation of the harvest helps families in need. Like
the Eastside garden, the middle school garden is
dependent on dedicated adult volunteers for garden
planning, maintenance, and contributing to lessons
for the students.
OFB funds these programs with corporate,
philanthropic, and individual donations. In
considering the future of the gardening program and
the question of whether and how to scale up, OFB
is assessing the role it wants to play – as expressed
by staff, should the food bank be in the business
of farming, or should it convene individuals and
organizations to discuss access to healthy foods?
While staff do not expect to increase the number or
size of gardens or to make them more productionoriented, they are interested in expanding the
gardening network through the greenhouse seedlings
program; encouraging individuals and partner
agencies to plant their own seedlings; providing
soil and supplies to those partner agencies that run
community gardens; and teaching Seed to Supper
classes as part of the garden outreach strategy in
Portland and across the state
Westside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR
Students’ activity chart from the Westside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank
32
FARMING
As urban farming and direct marketing (farmers
markets, CSAs) have expanded in recent years,
food banks have increasingly established their own
farms and developed direct sourcing relationships
with local farmers for their “first harvest” crops (in
addition to gleaning), delivering food to the urban
poor sometimes in the form of a CSA or farmers
market.
Food banks’ own farms support a variety of food and
community development programs; for example:
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was one of the earliest food banks to start its own
farm, on 60 acres in Hadley, in 1992. The commercial
Mountain View Farm leases it from the food bank,
in exchange for 100,000 pounds of fresh, chemicalfree produce annually.
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Arizona in Tucson operates two community farms,
in addition to a demonstration and market garden
and a home gardens support program. The 3-acre
Marana Community Food Bank Farm grows for the
food bank, hosts monthly workshops and a youth
program, and honors the agricultural heritage of
the area’s native peoples through its plantings and
events. Las Milpitas de Cottonwood community
farm and garden is cultivated by high school
students and neighbors, its harvest going to the food
bank, youth-run farmers markets, and gardeners’
families and friends. It is a demonstration site for
desert food production, composting, permaculture,
and ecological restoration.
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of Catholic Charities in Manchester, runs three small
farms, including one that operates a small farm
business incubation program for refugees.
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Carolina, also runs training farms and is profiled in a
case study below.
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Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, California,
and its Incredible Edible Park.
Finally, food banks source fresh produce directly
from local farmers via seasonal contracts (including
for CSAs) or more or less regular purchase. Programs
that reflect the range of these activities include:
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in a state program supported by Cornell University
to connect food banks with farms for CSA-style
distribution. Participating residents of Harlem pick
up CSA shares weekly.
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York sources produce from farms (close to 145,000
pounds in 2011) for distribution to cupboards and
other member agencies, a separate CSA, and for sale
at a farmers market.
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a case study below, leases a 4-acre farm in a county
park and purchases directly from other local farmers
at their farms and at a local auction.
Top 10 Food Banks -- Farming (lbs. harvested)
178,000
Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York
143,316
Food for Lane County
100,000
South Plains Food Bank
100,000
The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts
100,000
93,000
60,000
FreeStore/FoodBank, Inc.
60,000
SH ARE
56,000
Table 9
33
2,475,000
CASE STUDY
Located on an old military base, the Second Harvest
Food Bank of Orange County is striking in its stateof-the-art facilities and its proximity to both its own
farm – The Incredible Edible Park – and to the newest
local agriculture venture in Irvine, The Great Park.
The food bank has multiple fresh produce programs,
and about half of its staff is involved in fresh food
distribution, although none have a background in
agriculture. Sam, the Harvest Coordinator at the
Incredible Edible Park, worked as a truck driver
before taking on his new role.
Staff estimate that 40% of total food distributed
is fresh produce, roughly one third of that from
local sources. In 2011, the food bank distributed
2,796,096 pounds of gleaned produce thanks to
the California Association of Food Banks’ Farmto-Family program. The food bank also harvested
93,000 pounds of produce from its own Incredible
Edible Park. Five thousand pounds of this harvest
was distributed to clients through the mobile pantry
program.
The Food Bank of Orange County’s mobile pantry
program began in 1999 with a repurposed old soda
truck and a grant from KRAFT to design a truck
capable of storing and distributing fresh produce.
Now, 200 to 300 families receive food within an hour
of collection, and sites without refrigeration capacity
can offer their clients fresh produce. OC Healthcare
Agency is a partner of the program, providing
recipes and volunteer nutritionists to clients on-site.
AG Kawamura, who with his brother runs Orange
County Produce, is credited with the birth of the
8-acre Incredible Edible Park in the early 2000s.
Originally, Kawamura recruited volunteers to his own
fields to collect leftover produce and to deliver the
harvest to the food bank. But he eventually decided
it would be more efficient to start a separate farm
that would grow solely for the food bank. The City
of Irvine now provides free water for the Park and
contributes $50,000 annually for farm maintenance.
Sam runs the Park with the help of two paid staff and a
cadre of volunteers. Planting each season is based on a
member agency survey. Zucchini has been the largest
crop, and there are 88 citrus trees on the site.
As staff at the Food Bank of Orange County began
to design and develop their fresh produce programs,
they spoke to several experts in the field. In turn, the
food bank is collaborating with the Los Angeles and
San Diego food banks to increase their fresh produce
distribution. Several targeted grants help fund Orange
County’s fresh produce programs, but the majority
of each program’s funding comes from the operating
budget. Its greatest continuing challenges, shared by
food banks in general, include increased demand
for food in the economic crisis since 2008 and the
perishability of produce in a food bank seeking to
distribute as much as possible.
The food bank’s new CEO, Nicole Suydam , who
worked with the food bank many years earlier, noted
one of the big changes she found upon her return was
the food bank and member agencies’ new emphasis on
fresh produce and the fascination with “farm-to-fork”
amongst donors. Looking forward, food bank staff
hope to glean more produce from available resources
and work with other food relief organizations to scale
up their fresh produce operations.
34
CASE STUDY
The Chester County Food Bank officially opened in
November 2009 under the leadership of Executive
Director Larry Welsch. Yet the organization’s history
dates to 1996, when County Commissioner Andy
Dinniman (now a State Senator) started a gleaning
program with Amish farmers, using volunteers
to collect produce from participating farms and
distributing the food to churches, schools, and
other organizations. When the Food Bank took
over responsibility for federal and state feeding
programs, Chair of the Board of Trustees Bob
McNeil felt that that the Food Bank should also do
something different, not just “cans in and cans out.”
Bob helped expand the network of farmers, linking
them to feeding programs, and he helped raise funds
to develop a commercial kitchen that expanded the
Food Bank’s capacity to use and store locally grown
foods. Now, Chester County Food bank works with
29 food cupboards, 10 soup kitchens, 7 shelters,
and 24 other programs reaching 40,000 households
each year. In 2011 they distributed over 200,000
pounds of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables,
accomplished through the effective organization of
1,200 volunteers and a variety of programs.
The food bank’s gleaning program currently works
with over 40 farms, and it has expanded beyond
gleaning into other farming activities. It is led by
Phoebe Kitson-Davis, a Presbyterian minister with
no training in agriculture, but great skills at working
with farmers and organizing volunteers. The Food
Bank provides volunteer labor, saving the farms and
the food bank from paying for pick-and-pack labor.
In 2011, the food bank contracted with three farms
in advance of (not just during) the growing season
to set aside acres for donation. It also grows fields of
potatoes and a small kitchen garden with the help of
volunteers in a county park that is a historic – and
still working – farm. Another initiative to source
local produce inexpensively involves stationing three
retired gentlemen at farmers’ auctions. In 2011 they
were able to buy 178,000 pounds of fresh produce
averaging just 28 cents per pound. The food bank
35
sought to double that purchase the next year. In early
2013, it hired a farmer of its own.
The Chester County Food Bank is working to
transform school food in the poor districts of
Pennsylvania’s wealthiest county, which are often
attended by children of agricultural workers in what
remains a vital farming area, including the world’s
center of mushroom production around Kennett
Square. The food bank has developed raised bed
gardens in collaboration with 30 schools, in 6 out
of the 12 school districts. Families volunteer to care
for and harvest the food over the summer months
when school is out. During the school year, gardens
are tied to teaching and farm-to-school programs in
some cafeterias. The food bank also distributes fresh
produce as well as local fruits and vegetables processed
in its kitchen through its backpack program in 11
elementary schools, providing food for 1,000 young
children and their families each month.
One of the advantages of having a commercial kitchen
is that a high volume of locally grown food can be
processed and stored, extending its life and making
it available to additional programs. Volunteers make
dried fruit, soups, tomato sauce and additional dried
foods, which are used in senior box programs, after
school snacks, meals on wheels, and other settings.
There are always challenges for food banks, but the
biggest faced by Chester County in distributing fresh
local produce is the supply chain. The opening hours
of food cupboards do not always fit with harvesting
schedules. It is also difficult to predict when crops will
be ready for harvesting and to schedule volunteers
accordingly. Despite these challenges, the Food Bank
has developed a culture of saying yes to everything,
from accepting even the smallest donation to being
ready to pick up food at a moment’s notice. Staff believe
this creates good will and trust that inspire others
to get involved, leading to increased partnerships,
volunteering, and donations.
“One of the advantages of having a commercial kitchen is that a high volume of locally grown food can be
processed and stored, extending its life and making it available to additional programs.”
Larry’s vision for the future involves creating a countywide network of farms, feeding programs, schools, and
families that will end hunger in Chester County. Within the next five years, he plans for 50% of the food bank’s
total food distributed to be locally grown, fresh produce.
Chester County Food Bank, PA
36
CASE STUDY
“Food doesn’t fix the problem”, says executive
director and co-founder Jill Staton Bullard. Jill was
a soccer mom with four children when she and
Maxine Solomon became concerned about all the
good food that they saw being wasted. Managers of
grocery stores told her that they were required to
dispose of unsold food, rather than donate to food
relief organizations. Luckily, Jill knew the director
of Environmental Health Services of Wake County,
who confirmed that there were no such rules or
regulations. He and Jill worked together to develop a
plan for redistribution of unused food from grocery
stores. Jill put two coolers in the trunk of her car and
personally distributed donated food to shelters and
pantries. That was the beginning of the Inter-Faith
Food Shuttle in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1989.
Shortly thereafter, Jill discussed her concerns with
the Commissioner of Agriculture, who facilitated
an arrangement with North Carolina State
Farmer’s Markets to pick up “seconds” and unsold
food, providing the organization with enormous
quantities of fresh food. From there, Jill’s efforts grew
exponentially. By 1991 Inter-Faith had acquired
its own building near the state farmers market in
Raleigh, and in 1996 Jill began visiting food banks and
feeding programs throughout the U.S. to advocate
for “feeding people, not landfills,” and teaching
Inter-Faith’s methods of gleaning from retailers and
farmers. One of Jill’s most important steps forward
for fresh produce distribution was working with the
state legislature to pass a new, more effective state
Good Samaritan Law that would protect farmers
from liability when donating produce. In addition
to millions of pounds from farmers markets, InterFaith also developed its own field gleaning program.
In continuing to personally distribute donated food
to pantries, shelters, recreation centers, and housing
authority residences, Jill realized that the obstacles
to families’ access to fresh, healthy food were not
only economic, but also geographic and educational.
Many people lacked skills in cooking fresh foods they
had never seen before. This spurred the formation
37
of informal cooking classes, taught by grandmothers
who would go to distribution points to pass on their
knowledge. Upon discovering how particularly
isolated and alienated immigrant populations
are from U.S. food systems, Jill obtained land for
immigrant groups to use for community gardens.
And to combat poverty, Inter-Faith implemented job
training programs.
In 2011, the Food Shuttle rescued 7.1 million pounds
of food. A large portion of this food (41%) is fresh
produce; staff estimate that they rescue 3 million
pounds of fresh food each year. An additional 38% of
distributions are perishable, representing local eggs,
meats, dairy, baked goods, frozen foods, deli and
restaurant donations. This means only about one-fifth
of the food Inter-Faith distributes is canned or boxed.
Food is distributed, using 13 refrigerated trucks, to
213 programs and 169 agencies in seven counties,
including cupboards, shelters, schools, and public
housing sites. Inter-Faith also collaborates with these
and other partners in a backpack program, after
school programs, and home delivery of groceries to
low-income seniors. All of this work is done with a
combination of paid staff members and the help of
5,000 volunteers. Inter-Faith also relies on the help
of those completing court-mandated community
service, and on high school students looking for
community service experience.
Some of the 3 million annual pounds of fresh produce
Inter-Faith distribute come from the organization’s
gardening and farming programs, through which
it plays expanded roles in the local food system.
In addition to making land accessible to people at
risk of food insecurity, the Food Shuttle is working
to help grow new generations of farmers as well as
other food sector workers and home cooks. It also
runs cooking demonstrations and workshops taught
by AmeriCorps volunteers that attract nearly 8,000
participants each year.
Inter-Faith has helped to found and operate seven
“Jill realized that the obstacles to families’ access to fresh, healthy food were not only economic, but also geographic
and educational.”
community gardens throughout Raleigh and
Durham. The organization pays residents from
surrounding neighborhoods to manage the gardens
and to train others in gardening and leadership, with
the hope that local residents will eventually take
over Inter-Faith’s management functions. The Food
Shuttle also coordinates a grow-a-row program
with community gardeners. And it uses four of the
garden sites in Raleigh to train youth in farming
techniques, as Inter-Faith has become one of twelve
Regional Outreach and Training Centers training
new small farmers across the nation supported by
urban agriculture pioneer Growing Power.
The Food Shuttle runs two farms, each supporting
multiple programs: the first on 6 acres of leased land
on the outskirts of Raleigh, and the second on 2 acres
in Carrboro. Staff estimate harvesting 16,000 pounds
annually through the efforts of 2,000 volunteers. The
farms include hoop-houses, worm composting, and
aquaponic demonstration modeled after Growing
Power, and they also raise goats and chickens and
encompass community gardens for Congolese and
other immigrants. Inter-Faith runs a summer farm
training program for high school teens, in which
students receive stipends for their work and bring
home fresh food for their families. The Food Shuttle
also participates in a national program called CraftUp, in which young farmers intern with experienced
farmers. The average farmer in the US is 57 years
of age), an effort to give young people paths to
employment and preserve the tradition of small- to
mid-scale farming.
In a related effort to attack poverty and workforce
development in other parts of the food sector, InterFaith’s culinary job training program provides adults
with intensive skills training, job coaches, and social
services. In 2011, 26 people graduated from the
60th class of the program, which uses some local
produce from the farms and gardens. Over 70% of
past participants are successfully employed, mainly
in the food service industry.
As the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle has rapidly expanded
the scope and diversity of its programs, it has
encountered new challenges. Zoning restrictions
limit urban agriculture. The existing tax structures
for both urban and rural land do not support small
entrepreneurial farms. Public transportation is
limited in the Raleigh-Durham region, which causes
difficulties for both volunteers and clients. With a
budget of over $2 million per year and 60 paid staff,
there is constant financial pressure on the organization,
a common challenge among food banks.
Nevertheless, for Jill Staton Bullard, this is still just
the beginning of what local agriculture can do to help
transform food relief. Her vision includes having
vegetable gardens on every urban block, using job
training in urban farming as a method of broader
economic development, and ultimately ensuring that
no child in the state goes hungry.
Inter-faith Food Shuttle, Raleigh, NC
38
CASE STUDY
Capital Area Food Bank
When president Lynn Brantley founded the Capital
Area Food Bank (CAFB) in 1988, she recognized a
need to solve hunger while also providing access to
nutritious food. Ms. Brantley has always considered
hunger to be directly related to health issues such as
diabetes and heart disease, as they often stem from
people not eating well. The mission of the food bank
has thus from the beginning been to educate and
empower residents to make healthful food choices.
From an organizational standpoint, the food bank
also recognizes that it is financially strategic to build
relationships with farmers who have extra produce
that they can contribute to the food relief system. Out
of the 32 million pounds distributed in 2012, 16.5
million of those were fresh produce (not all local),
distributed to 478,000 residents in the Washington,
D.C., southern Maryland, and Northern Virginia
area. CAFB is the largest nutrition education and
food distribution resource in the metro region. Over
700 partner agencies receive its services, many of
them social agencies with a food pantry, kitchen, or
meal program.
CAFB approaches nutritious food from a variety of
angles, but the emphasis is on education of partner
agencies and clients, and on connecting them to
farms and gardening opportunities. In 1991 a family
connection between a CAFB staff member and a
farm manager led to a partnership with Clagett Farm,
located in southern Maryland. The food bank has
received 30,000 pounds of fresh produce annually
from this farm for the past ten years. The CAFB also
has ties to Waterpenny Farm, in northern Virginia.
Waterpenny Farm and shareholders donate a few
CSA shares to the food bank each year, but CAFB
acts primarily as a customer of the farm, purchasing
CSA shares at reduced prices in addition to 3,000 to
5,000 pounds of fresh produce for the food bank per
season.
CAFB has a direct partnership with Clagett Farm
that involves both produce sourcing and education
through the Fresh Produce Grant and From the
39
Ground Up programs. Clagett Farm agrees to
distribute 40% of its seasonal harvest to the food bank
each year, dedicating a portion of its 20-25 acres to
production for CAFB. About 70% of the harvest is
used in the Fresh Produce Grant program, which links
partner agencies with produce from Clagett Farm.
Agencies with the capacity to handle large volumes of
fresh produce apply for the grant, and upon receiving
it go directly to the farm to pick up produce for
distribution to clients or for use in meal programs.
The remaining 30% of Clagett Farm’s product for the
food bank is sold in CSAs at significantly reduced
prices to individuals who qualify for federal aid.
From the Ground Up focuses on educating and
empowering partner agencies and clients through
lessons on growing produce, sustainability, and
food justice. Partner agencies also receive a cooking
demonstration focusing on seasonal ingredients from
the farm, and the program provides partner agencies
with a list of upcoming farm produce throughout the
season. This helps agencies with meal programs plan
ways to use products they may never have cooked
with before. For agencies that focus on distribution,
recipes can be included in emergency food bags so
that clients learn how to use new ingredients. With
the opening of CAFB’s new food distribution center,
most of the food bank’s educational programming will
soon take place at a new on-site urban demonstration
garden, which will function as a hands-on laboratory
for learning how to grow nutritious food.
To describe and advertise its healthy food initiatives
and connect people to other garden and food support
programs in the region, CAFB maintains an easily
accessible webpage. It offers a wealth of information on
resources available to individuals and organizations,
ranging from cooking and budgeting classes to farms
and gardening programs to healthy eating initiatives.
The website makes it easy for
people to sign up for programs, apply for a Fresh
Produce Grant, or sign up to volunteer at the Clagett
and Waterpenny Farms. CAFB wants to give its
“From the Ground Up focuses on educating and empowering partner agencies and clients through lessons on
growing produce, sustainability, and food justice.”
clients information as well as skills that will allow
them to take their food destiny into their own hands,
moving them along the spectrum of food relief
toward becoming less dependent on emergency
food sources.
The Fresh Produce Grant and From the Ground
Up programs have certainly impacted the demand
for fresh produce at partner agencies. The grant
program is in high demand, and clients who have
been involved at the farm have recognized the
difference in taste and quality that locally sourced
produce offers.
New farm partners who can provide a high volume
of produce to the food bank are always welcome. For
example, farm sourcing will expand in 2013 through
a new nonprofit farm that plans to grow 1 million
pounds of food for donation to the CAFB. Farm
partnerships offer educational opportunities and
bring in fresh, local produce, but in taking on new
partners, CAFB continues to evaluate the threshold
at which it is worthwhile for food banks to partner
with sources that provide a comparatively low volume
of fresh produce. This is an ongoing question for the
food bank as its local produce programs continue to
evolve.
Capital Area Food Bank, D.C.
Images Courtesy of Capital Area Food Bank, D.C.
40
CONCLUSION
Policy Implications and Opportunities
As discussed in the introduction and summary of
findings, our national scan and case studies found
that food banks engage in and with gleaning,
gardening, and farming for distinct reasons that
highlight related challenges of community food
security. Large-scale gleaning from commercial
farms and packinghouses yields the greatest volume
of fruit and vegetable “seconds” for food banks to
distribute and sometimes process. Community,
home, and school gardening programs contribute
some produce to the mix of food distributed by food
banks and their affiliates, although the quantity is
difficult to estimate given that produce from these
settings is often not weighed. Regardless, these
harvests have broader impacts on households’
and communities’ capacity to meet some of their
own food needs compared with crops obtained
through gleaning. The smaller number of food bank
farming projects address an even broader range
of community development goals, and most have
developed recently.
Gleaning and farming have enabled some food
banks to grow and source a large proportion of their
total food from local fruit and vegetable growers.
A small number of food banks like Food Gatherers
41
(40%), Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (41%), food banks in
California, and others profiled in this report have thus
dramatically altered the mix and overall healthfulness
of the food they distribute to people who are hungry.
Gardening and community farming programs have
transformed many food banks’ roles in local food
systems and in promoting community food security.
The various gleaning, gardening, and farming
programs run by or tied to food banks in the United
States present diverse implications and opportunities
for public policy at the federal, state, and local levels.
The large gleaning programs that source “seconds”
from commercial growers illustrate an efficient way
that federal and state emergency food programs,
which are already tied to commodity surplus, could
adapt their supply chains to source significantly
more fruits and vegetables. The federal Farm Bill and
state agricultural, welfare, education, and food relief
policies and programs can incentivize and support
coordination of these supply chains, as they do in some
states already. In the Farm Bill, this includes funding
and guidelines for TEFAP, TEFAP Bonus, CSFP, and
school food (which is also impacted by child nutrition
acts).
This can take the form of:
t
1SPNPUJOH GBSNFST BXBSFOFTT PG HMFBOJOH
opportunities and associated tax benefits, which some
food banks already do, but which state agricultural
extension and other public sector farm support
programs could disseminate further.
t
5ZJOH JODFOUJWFT JO GFEFSBM BOE TUBUF IVOHFS
relief programs to the proportion of produce they
distribute.
t
3FJNCVSTJOH GPPE CBOLT GPS QVSDIBTF BOE
transportation costs of moving produce, particularly
in the TEFAP Bonus and state food purchase
programs.
t
3FQMJDBUJOHTUBUFXJEFQSPHSBNTTVDIBTUIPTF
in California and Arizona, which Feeding America
and its members are already seeking to do.
The gardening and community farming programs
that engage large numbers of adults and youth
from communities experiencing food insecurity
illustrate how food bank and allied programs can
build individual and community capacity for food
production, marketing, preparation, and consumption
of fresh vegetables and fruit, and promote food
justice. The recent growth of urban agriculture and
its substantial contributions to building community
food security present diverse opportunities for cities,
states, and the federal government to support the
formation and preservation of these links, from land
policy at the local and state levels to the Farm Bill
and allied nutrition legislation. Yet presently, policies
and public support for urban gardening are uneven
and target food insecure communities inconsistently.
Community, school, and home gardening programs
led by or tied to food banks are well positioned to reach
people experiencing and at risk for food insecurity.
Opportunities to capitalize on this position include:
t
$POHSFTT BOE UIF 64%" DPVME DSFBUF B
national fruit and vegetable garden support program
that builds more consistent and accessible supports for
growers in urban, suburban, and rural communities
at risk of food insecurity. Both new and existing
garden support systems can be linked much more to
food banks and their constituents, as the variety of
programs profiled above illustrate. The Community
Food Projects program in the Farm Bill, together with
other federal and state agriculture and community
development funding, already support gardening
and urban farming on a project basis. However,
since the end of the Urban Gardens Program that
operated from the mid-1970s to mid-90s through
local extension, the federal government has not
provided ongoing support for city or countywide
garden support programs. Rebuilding a national
gardening support system could entail a relatively
small commitment of funding, but would require a
re-orientation of urban agriculture support and rural
extension service systems in many cities and regions.
t
"U UIF NVOJDJQBM PS DPVOUZ MFWFM MPDBM
governments and their nonprofit partners already
supporting community, school, and home gardening
can link and embed their work more systematically
in their local and regional networks of food
banks, cupboards, and other emergency feeding
organizations. This can take the form of both material
and educational support for gardeners as well as
expanded grow-a-row networks.
It is important to recognize that not every cupboard,
homeless shelter, or soup kitchen will be a viable place
to garden, depending on their organizational capacity
and focus of their work, nor will every recipient of
food assistance be a good candidate to garden. But
many are, as illustrated by the larger community and
home-based garden support programs discussed
above.
Crucially, garden and small farm support programs
cost money to sustain. Food banks and especially
cupboards also often require equipment upgrades,
mainly for refrigeration, in order to effectively
manage the distribution of more fresh produce –
and some of the food banks profiled in this report
have assisted their member cupboards with these
capital improvements and supply chain management.
Although some effort is required, garden and small
farm support programs represent some of the most
efficient and impactful investments in building food
security.
Finally, some farming programs discussed in
this report also suggest that food banks can play
important roles in farmland preservation, regional
food distribution, and in training and incubating new
farmers, chefs, and food enterprises, contributing to
the vitality and sustainability of far more than just the
42
emergency food system. These programs help illustrate
the contributions food banks can make to diverse
sectors of local economies, again with many potential
local, state, and federal agriculture and economic
development policy opportunities and implications.
Community Food Forest, Portland Fruit Tree Project, Portland, OR
43
ENDNOTES
1. CSA stands for “community supported agriculture,” an arrangement in which customers pay farmers before
the growing season and receive produce weekly. In “low income CSAs,” which are typically subsidized, customers
typically pay smaller amounts on a weekly basis.
2. A small number of scholars have formally studied gleaning programs, mainly through ethnographic methods
or single case studies. These include: Susan H. Evans and Peter Clarke, “Disseminating Orphan Innovations,”
Stanford Social Innovation Review vol.9, no.1 (Winter 2011), 42-47; Anne Hoisington, Sue N. Butkus, Steven
Garrett, and Kathy Beerman, “Field Gleaning as a Tool for Addressing Food Security at the Local Level: Case
Study,” Journal of Nutrition Education vol.33, no.1 (January-February 2001), 43-48; Joseph J. Molnar, Patricia
A. Duffy, LaToya Claxton, and Conner Bailey, “Private Food Assistance in a Small Metropolitan Area: Urban
Resources and Rural Needs,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare vol. 28, no.3 (September 2001), 187-210;
Janet Poppendieck, “Dilemmas of Emergency Food: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Agriculture and Human Values
vol.11, no.4 (Fall 1994), 69-76; Janet Poppendieck, Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement
(New York: Penguin, 1999); and Valerie Tarasuk and Joan M. Eakin, “Food Assistance through ‘Surplus’ Food:
Insights from an Ethnographic Study of Food Banks Work,” Agriculture and Human Values vol.22, no.2 (Summer
2005), 177-186. Concurrent to our study, Professor David Aftandilian of Texas Christian University conducted
an electronic survey of food banks’ gardening programs in the United States; and Holly Beddome surveyed fruit
gleaning organizations in the U.S. and Canada for her Masters in Environmental Studies at the University of
Manitoba. Some past studies of nutrition, food security, and community development also note food banks’ links
to urban agriculture, though these links themselves are not the core focus of these studies. They include: Gail W.
Feenstra, “Local Food Systems and Sustainable Communities,” American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, vol.12
(1997), 28-36; Michael W. Hamm and Anne C. Bellows, “Community Food Security and Nutrition Educators,”
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior vol.35, no.1 (January-February 2003), 37-43; Charles Z. Levkoe,
“Learning Democracy Through Food Justice Movements,” Agriculture and Human Values vol.23, no.1 (Spring
2006), 89-98; Betty Wells, Shelly Gradwell, and Rhonda Yoder, “Growing Food, Growing Community: Community
Supported Agriculture in Rural Iowa,” Community Development Journal vol.34, no.1 (1999), 38-46; and Mark
Winne, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty (Boston: Beacon, 2008).
3. See: Domenic Vitiello and Michael Nairn, Community Gardening in Philadelphia: 2008 Harvest Report (2009);
Domenic Vitiello, Michael Nairn, J.A. Grisso, and Noah Swistak, Community Gardening in Camden, NJ: Harvest
Report (2010); Idem, Community Gardening in Trenton, NJ: Harvest Report (2010), all available at: https://sites.
google.com/site/urbanagriculturephiladelphia/harvest-reports
4. See: Farm to Family Out the Door: A Food Bank’s Guide to Produce Distribution in California (http://www.
cafoodbanks.org/docs/F2F_Out_The_Door.pdf); and Utilizing New Methods of Crop Harvesting to Introduce
Nutrient-Dense Specialty Crops to Low Income Consumers (http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocNa
me=STELPRDC5096280&acct=gpfsmip).
5. For links to fruit tree and gleaning projects in Canada, the U.K., and U.S., see: http://www.phillyorchards.org/
orchards/links
6. Vitiello and Nairn, Community Gardening in Philadelphia; Vitiello et al., Community Gardening in Camden,
NJ and Community Gardening in Trenton, NJ; Josh Beniston and Rattan Lal, “Improving Soil Quality for Urban
Agriculture in the North Central U.S.,” in Carbon Sequestration in Urban Ecosystems, Rattan Lal and Bruce
Augustin, eds. (New York: Springer, 2012), 279-314.
44
APPENDIX
Interview Questions
The following questions were asked of all food banks
and organizations interviewed for this report:
General Background
1. How and why did the food bank or organization
begin sourcing from local agriculture?
2. Where is the food from these programs distributed?
3. Has there been increased demand for fresh
and/or local produce from member agencies or
organizations since the program began?
4. Can the food bank meet demand?
5. How many food cupboards, soup kitchens,
and other organizations receive food from local
agriculture sourcing programs? And, relatedly, how
many (estimated) households receive food through
these same programs?
Fresh Food Programs
1. Please give a brief history of each relevant program.
2. What are the program goals, and how do they
relate to the organization’s mission, vision, and
values?
3. Is this an in-house program or partnership? If
partnership, discuss the partner organizations’ goals,
missions, and roles.
4. Please tell us about the organization of the
program. What are the different staff roles, expertise,
and backgrounds? How are volunteers involved in
the program? How are they recruited, coordinated,
etc.? What is the program budget, and how is it
funded?
5. Why do producers, consumers, and volunteers
participate in the program? Do you partner with
organizations to run the programs, and if so, what
are the roles of partners?
45
6. Why have funders supported the program? Are
there any stipulations to funding? How long does the
funding exist?
7. What prospects and barriers does the program face
to scaling up?
8. How reliable is the supply chain for the program?
Are there any efforts underway to find new suppliers?
9. How replicable is this program? What are the
challenges of replication?
10. What policies have you encountered that either
make this program more difficult or facilitate it? Is
there an example of a policy enacted in response to
an identified problem or barrier?
11. What are your plans, if any, to augment the
program in the near future (e.g., next 2 years)?
12. Are you planning other new programs/initiatives
that you expect to involve local agriculture in the near
future?
Synergies and Best-Practice Sharing
1. Has the food bank or organization been in contact
with other food banks or similar organizations to
share best practices? If so, has this communication
been beneficial? If not, why? Are there any barriers
to information sharing?
2. If a database were created with national local
agriculture practices and programs (as connected to
healthful food relief), would that be helpful to the
organization’s work?
3. Are you aware of any programs in your area that are
worth further investigation?

food relief goes local

Transcription

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