A report on research funded by the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives

Domenic Vitiello Jeane Ann Grisso Rebecca Fischman K. Leah Whiteside

GARDENING, GLEANING, AND FARMING FOR FOOD BANKS IN THE U.S.FOOD RELIEF GOES LOCAL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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 19Second Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, CA 21Food Forward, Los Angeles, CA 23Portland Fruit Tree Project, OR 25 Gardening 27

Case studies: Food Gatherers Food Bank, Ann Arbor, MI 30Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR 31

Farming 33

Case studies: Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA 34Chester County Food Bank, PA 35 Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Raleigh, NC 37 Capital Area Food Bank, Washington, DC 39

Conclusion: Policy Implications and Opportunities 41

Endnotes 44

Appendix: Interview Questions for Case Studies 45

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

�is 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 O�ce 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.

�e sta� 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 A�andilian 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

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYMore than one in eight Americans relies on food assistance distributed through food banks, including over 14 million children. Food banks are nonpro�t 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 �eld 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 o�ers a vital opportunity to transform food relief systems.

�is report summarizes the results of research

examining food banks’ engagement in and with local agriculture. �e 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 di�erent ways that food banks do this as well as estimates of how much fresh, local produce they distribute to hungry people. �e report consists of: a brief introduction; a description of our methods; basic summary analysis of our �ndings; 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.

�e main ways food banks attain food from local agriculture are:

• Gleaning:volunteers,nonprofitstaff,orfarmworkers harvest vegetables and fruit that farmers or gardeners do not want, in the �eld, backyards and parks, or from farmers markets, and they distribute it to food banks, cupboards, or other recipients. • Grow-a-row:gardenersorfarmersplantrows,plots, or �elds of vegetables for donation to food banks, cupboards, and other organizations.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

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Key �ndings from our national scan and case studies of food banks and allied programs in cities and metropolitan areas include:

• Gleaning, gardening, and farming for foodrelief are expanding. • Theseactivitiesenablefoodbanksandrelatedorganizations 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 a�ord it. • Currently, locally grown food that isdistributed by food banks makes up a very small proportion of the total food distributed, usually around one percent (1%). • However, some food banks have expandedtheir programs to include a large proportion of locally grown food. For example, we found 17 food banks that produced and sourced over �ve 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.• The greatest quantities of fresh producesourced directly from farmers to food banks are harvested through large-scale gleaning programs that distribute millions of pounds, usually from big commercial growers. • Gardeningandfarmingprogramsaccountforlower volumes of food (and o�en 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. �ese activities have led to food banks assuming new and diverse roles in many community food systems. • Efforts are just underway to replicate andscale up these e�orts, and to document their impacts. Food banks are o�en unaware of others’ programs, which slows the pace of dissemination and expansion.• Likeotherpartsofthefoodreliefsector,theseprograms are largely dependent upon grant funding and volunteers, though they adopt varied business models. • Forlocal,state,andfederalfoodreliefpolicy,these programs o�er 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.

• Garden support programs: food bankssupport 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. • Foodbanks’ownfarmsandgardens:staffandvolunteers tend and harvest these sites, some of which include new farmer training programs. • Contracts with farms: some food bankscontract 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. O�en these activities are carried out in concert with cooking education and food worker training programs.

Village Harvest, CA

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INTRODUCTION�e 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, o�en highly processed. But over the years, SHARE’s director Steveanna Wynn and her sta� 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. �e 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 signi�cant shi�s 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 �e 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

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 tractor-trailer 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 �rst 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

SHARE Food Program, Philadelphia, PA

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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.

Yet most food banks and allied food relief organizations are acting in relative isolation – collaborating at the local level, but o�en unaware of related e�orts in other states and regions. �is was one inspiration for our research, which grows more speci�cally 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.

�is 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 di�erent 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 pro�led 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 �ndings provide a baseline picture of the scope of current practices with which practitioners, researchers, and policy makers can assess future changes over time.

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 o�er 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.

�e story of SHARE’s e�orts 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 arti�cial preservatives, sweeteners, and other ingredients condemned by today’s public health and good food advocates. Equally signi�cant, through their gardening and farming programs, many food banks have adopted new roles in promoting community food security. �is constitutes a marked departure from food banks’ traditional role in distributing commodity surplus and charitable donations.

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SHARE Food Program, Philadelphia, PA

gardening and urban farming sector as well as older suburban farms, o�ers diverse and expanding opportunities to source food in areas of the regional food system that may not yet be tapped or turfed out.

Generally, our research �nds that gleaning, gardening, and farming achieve di�erent 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 e�orts 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 signi�cant 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 o�en uncounted – ways that food banks support local agriculture and vice versa. Finally, we re�ect upon some of the policy implications of food banks’ recent program development in local agriculture as well as potential directions for future research.

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 nonpro�t gardening, farming, and direct marketing programs to link with food relief organizations. Programs’ diverse goals and activities produce di�erent priorities as well as varied de�nitions of “healthy” and “local.” �ese 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. Signi�cantly, 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

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Food Gatherers, Ann Arbor, MI

METHODSOur 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.

�e 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. �e 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 a�liated with Feeding America.

�e 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 identi�ed. 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. �ese 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 o�en charge food cupboards for) each pound of food they distribute. So we

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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 di�erent regions of the U.S., with di�erent climates and agricultural bases. We visited mainly older and larger programs, but also some younger and smaller ones. �e questions we asked examined each program’s history and how it operates, including details of the production and distribution chain. �e 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. �is all enabled us to pro�le a range of gleaning, gardening, and farming programs in detailed case studies that illuminate best practices in linking local agriculture and food relief.

could be reasonably con�dent 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 �rst 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). �ese latter streams of food from farms and gardens to food relief organizations are least likely to be formally and accurately quanti�ed.

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

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, Detroit, MI

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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Our �ndings from the study of one hundred ��een (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:

• Gleaning:volunteers,nonprofitstaff,orfarmworkers harvest vegetables and fruit that farmers or gardeners do not want, in the �eld, neighborhoods, or a�er farmers markets, and they distribute it to food banks, cupboards, or other recipients. • Grow-a-row: gardeners or farmers plantrows, plots, or �elds of vegetables for donation to food banks, cupboards, and other organizations. • Garden support programs: food bankssupport 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. • Food banks’ own farms and gardens: staffand volunteers tend and harvest these sites, some of which include new farmer training programs. • Contracts with farms: some food bankscontract 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 nonpro�t gleaning organizations, �ve of which also run garden programs and one of which operates a farm. Many food banks operate or partner with multiple programs. �e 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 di�erent 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 – o�en these are small nonpro�ts that deliver the harvest to food banks

* �is and all other tables in the document report annual harvest �gures for 2011.** �is �gure 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.***�is �gure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its record-keeping.

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

Top 10 Food Banks -- Total Fresh Produce Harvested (lbs.)

Table 1

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materials, technical assistance, and sometimes land. Growers range from people who seek food relief to more a�uent 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 nonpro�ts 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 signi�cantly 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

and a�liated cupboards. Gleaning by commercial growers predictably yields larger volumes of fruit and vegetables for food banks in most cases, though some nonpro�t and volunteer-run programs harvest and distribute millions of pounds annually, too. Some of the smaller nonpro�ts 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, o�en 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 a�liated feeding organizations. Increasingly, food banks are also adopting the roles of community, home, and school garden support organizations, providing

New Jersey Farmers Against Hunger 430,000

Village Harvest 203,000

Community Harvest Project 170,000

Faith Feeds 96,000

Salem Harvest 92,209

Portland Fruit Tree Project 70,500

Harvest Sacramento 40,000

Backyard Harvest 36,800

The Harvest Club of Orange County 24,561

Top 10 Organizations Donating Produceto Food Banks (lbs. harvested)

California Association of Food Banks 127,000,000

Society of St. Andrew 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 1,000,000

Kentucky Association of Food Banks 984,865

State Associations of Food Banks and Multi-State

Programs (lbs. harvested)

Table 2

Table 3

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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 o�er volunteer opportunities far di�erent 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. �e 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 di�cult 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 �ve (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-�ve (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

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank 52%

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties 49%

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle 41%

Food Gatherers Food Bank 40%

Cleveland Food Bank, Inc.*** 26%

Island Harvest 22%

Chester County Food Bank 22%

East Texas Food Bank 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%

Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona 10%

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan*** 7.6%

Arkansas Foodbank 6.0%

San Antonio Food Bank 5.7%

Food Bank for New York City 5.5%

Local Fresh Produce as Percentage of Total Food Bank Distribution

Table 4

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***�is �gure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its record-keeping.

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.

�e 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.

Michigan, for example, which is pro�led in the �rst case study below, re�ects both of these patterns. In 2011, it supported production and distribution of more than 2.4 million pounds of vegetables and fruit from a�liated gardens, farms, and produce distribution centers, some 7.6 percent of all the food distributed by the food bank. �is 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

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties 52.78

Food Gatherers Food Bank 44.04

Cleveland Food Bank, Inc.*** 38.44

East Texas Food Bank 30.16

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank 26.51

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan 24.25

Mid-Ohio Food Bank 16.15

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County 14.31

Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona 10.97

San Antonio Food Bank 10.89

Top 10 Food Banks -- Fresh Produce per Person (lbs.)

Table 5

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***�is �gure includes both gleaning and wholesale produce totals, between which the food bank does not distinguish in its record-keeping.

CASE STUDYGleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan

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 sta� 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. �e 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 o�ers “double-up 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 sta� 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. �e program has low overhead and is considered to be a great success so far.

Gleaners also participates in Cooking Matters, a state-funded, 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 �nding 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 sta� 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 �nancial sustainability of such programs at Gleaners and other food banks.

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GLEANING

�e 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-��hs (80%) of all the produce we tallied at 116 programs:

• CaliforniaAssociationofFoodBanks’Farmto Family program, which accounts for 46% of all the produce we counted (127 million out of 274 million pounds). �e program pays large commercial growers at cost to keep their workers in the �elds and warehouses longer, picking and packing fruits and vegetables that they otherwise would not harvest and sell. �e growers truck this food directly to food banks around the state. �e program has produced reports intended for use by others interested in replicating such work. • Similar programs at the state associationsof 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. • The independent nonprofit Ag AgainstHunger, started by the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Farm Bureau in California, distributes fresh produce to food

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 �elds.• The Society of St. Andrew, the oldest ofthese 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’ �elds and pack produce for shipment to food banks and other feeding organizations. �e 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). �e 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

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

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�is 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 pro�led in the farming section below).

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 a�liated cupboards and other member organizations with farmers markets where farmers donate what they do not sell (these donations are o�en unmeasured). �e St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance in Flagsta� 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. �e 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. �e 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 �rst pick) produce they purchase from farmers to cupboards and other constituents free of charge.

Finally, smaller nonpro�t gleaning organizations in

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:

• Outside New York City, the Food Bank forWestchester gleaned some 773,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables, amounting to 12% of all the food it distributed. • IslandHarvestonLongIslandacquiredsome1.8 million pounds from local farmers, which made up 22% of its total food distribution. • The Vermont Food Bank harvested 238,380pounds of mainly fruits from orchards and organizes a state-wide gleaning program that accounts for 3.6% of all food distributed.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

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to cupboards, youth programs, or other community-based settings, rather than passing it through the food bank’s warehouse where it is more likely to be weighed and tallied. Urban agriculture organizations o�en focus more on supporting food production, markets, and other formal and informal community-based 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 pro�led in the following sections on gardening and farming.

some cities and regions distribute mainly fruit to food banks and their a�liates. �ey typically organize volunteers to harvest from home-based gardens and sometimes from commercial orchards. �ey glean from an overlapping but o�en-distinct set of growers from the bigger programs, including those at most food banks. �eir yields are usually small, but in at least two cases amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds. �ree 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 pro�led in case studies below.

Despite their similarities, these nonpro�ts’ organizational models di�er. 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 sta� 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. �e Portland Fruit Tree Project has grown to three sta� – 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 o�en address other food system challenges beyond gleaning for food relief. �ese 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

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Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, CA

* �is �gure 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.**�is �gure 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.*** �is �gure overlaps with those from the Texas Food Bank Network, which contributes a signi�cant portion of the food bank’s produce through the Texans Feeding Texans program.

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

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank 3,800,000

Food Bank for New York City 3,700,000

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County* 2,796,096

San Antonio Food Bank 2-3,000,000

Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona** 2,452,150

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan 2,372,293

Top 10 Food Banks -- Gleaning (lbs. harvested)

Table 6

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 1,000,000

Kentucky Association of Food Banks 984,865

Top State Associations of Food Banks and Multi-State

Programs -- Gleaning (lbs. harvested)

Table 7

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Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, CA

CASE STUDYVillage 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 di�erent hunger relief organizations (HROs), with the Second Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties receiving around one quarter of all donations. �ree thousand volunteers are involved with the gleaning organization, and 3,000 homes have been o�ered for picking. However, due to volunteer time constraints, only 500 homes can realistically be picked per year. While homeowners o�er myriad types of fruit trees for picking, oranges are by far the largest harvest at around 50,000 pounds annually.

Village Harvest builds short, e�cient supply chains, choosing picking sites and routes based on their proximity to a speci�c 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

fruit. Many HROs now o�er 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. �e perishability of fruit and HROs’ limited refrigerated storage space remain the greatest challenges and limits to their work.

�rough 2012, Village Harvest was an all-volunteer organization, supported by a $25,000 yearly budget and the generosity of volunteer sta� and harvesters ranging from stay-at-home mothers to retirees to young students. With a background in so�ware 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 o�ering their trees for picking are also encouraged to make a small donation to Village Harvest.

As of March 2013, Village Harvest has two paid sta� members (one part-time and one full-time). �eir 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.

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“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

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CASE STUDYSecond Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties

“Local produce” takes on a di�erent 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 �rst 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’ “Farm-to-Family” program. �e statewide organization solicits fresh produce from farmers, and each food bank pays the association for any freight and value-added processing fees. �e 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. �ese mobiles act as modi�ed 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, sta� the produce mobiles. Between July 2011 and February 2012, produce mobiles delivered 2,654,341 pounds to food insecure people.

�e food bank has made substantial investments in infrastructure and sta� 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

member agencies to quickly pick up available produce and thus to deliver better product to their constituencies.

�e food bank has also hired more nutritionists to ease the transition and to address related challenges of o�ering new foods for member agencies. Currently, Diane estimates that 80% of her time is dedicated to fresh produce distribution, and her team is all certi�ed 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.

�e Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara o�ers 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 sta� 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. �e 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.

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“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

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CASE STUDYFood Forward

Rick Nahmias founded Food Forward in 2009 a�er working with and documenting migrant workers in California. Realizing that most workers cannot a�ord 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. �e �rst volunteers, recruited from Craigslist and the local chapter of the Slow Food movement, identi�ed 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 volunteer-run, increasing their volunteer numbers along the way. In 2011, the organization was able to hire their �rst sta� members through a grant from the Durfee Foundation. �e 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 �exible schedules. Before each pick, sta� con�rms 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,

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 so�ware engineer to build a volunteer database. �e 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 �nancially 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 nonpro�t gleaning organizations, Food Forward faces signi�cant 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 di�culty 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

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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 currently has far more registered trees than they can feasibly pick, a list of 5,000 volunteers, and 50 partner agencies.”

Food Forward, CA

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CASE STUDYPortland 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 a�ordable food. In 2007 the Portland Fruit Tree Project was o�cially 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 o�ers 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. �e last three programs are meant to complement each other and to support the main harvest program. �e 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 �umb 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.

�e 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. �is grew out of the need for tree maintenance across the city. �e 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 o�ce, which is managed by a core group of volunteers and produces approximately 500 pounds of food annually.

�e 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. �ere 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. �e number of harvest parties and poundage of fruit has increased signi�cantly 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. Fi�y-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 sta�, 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.

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Volunteers play a key role in this small organization. PFTP has two full-time sta�, 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. �e 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 sta�, most of the PFTP’s work is done by volunteers. �ere 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.

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, o�ering a chance to meet people of di�erent 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 o�er a way to do these things under the umbrella of an o�cial 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 e�ort on their own.

PFTP has a budget of $140,000, with the majority of funding spent on the harvest program, and Katy is con�dent that this program is very replicable.

When she started the organization, PFTP was one of the only groups with such a program, but in their �rst 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.”

A Portland Fruit Tree Project “Harvest Party,” Portland, OR

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Food banks’ gardening programs most o�en fall into one or more of three categories:

• Gardensoperatedbyfoodbanks,typicallyattheir warehouses but also at other sites. Food bank sta� 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. • Grow-a-rowprogramscoordinatedby foodbanks 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 a�liated cupboards and feeding organizations. • Insomecitiesandregions,foodbankshavebecome 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.

Many food banks and a�liated feeding organizations bene�t from two programs that link gardeners to food relief organizations nationwide:

• TheGardenWritersAssociationofAmerica’sPlant-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. �e program trains and supports committees of volunteers who promote local gardening and coordinate collection for donation (and weighing) of harvest. • AmpleHarvest, foundedbyapioneer intheemail 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

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GARDENING

• Second Harvest of the Inland Northwest inSpokane, 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. • The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma inOklahoma 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 a�erschool programs. Such programs complement the backpack programs that are nearly ubiquitous at food banks in the U.S. • FOODforLaneCounty inEugene,Oregon,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 sta� 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. • The community-based Learning Gardens ofthe Oregon Food Bank in Portland are pro�led 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 re�ect the range of activities and sites include:

• The Food Bank of Santa Barbara supportshome gardeners – some 4,000 in 2011, the program’s �rst year – with training and materials, including a seed library at the warehouse and community-based seed banks. • TheAtlantaCommunityFoodBanksupportsover 100 community gardens linked to cupboards and other community-based organizations. �e food bank helps �nd land and organize neighbors to start gardens, in addition to supplying seeds, tilling, tools, and volunteers for garden maintenance and harvest days. �e Tapestry WIC garden is the only garden where harvest is recorded (over 106,000 pounds in 2011).

Food banks also operate their own grow-a-row programs in their city and region, and these are o�en combined with food banks’ own production, community, and teaching gardens. Representative and outlier examples of such programs run by food banks include:

• The Arkansas Food Bank Network in LittleRock 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. �is scale and organization of production and distribution is common among food banks’ own gardens, especially those planted recently. • Harvesters–TheCommunityFoodNetworkin 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. �is 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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Eastside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR

• TheCapitalAreaFoodBankinWashington,DC, connects experienced and aspiring gardeners to material and technical support via its web site as well as its own programs, which are pro�led in a case study in the farming section below• TheFoodGatherersFoodBankinAnnArbor,Michigan, partners with churches and the local housing authority to expand and support community gardening and connect it to food relief. It is also pro�led in a case study below. • TheChesterCountyFoodBank,highlightedin a case study in the farming section, has helped build and support school gardens and allied farm-to-school programs in the poorest districts of the county.

As noted above, the harvest from the gardening programs discussed in this section is di�cult to measure, as it o�en 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 sta� reported that garden support and education are among their most popular programs, o�en 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. �is 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.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County 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

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan 30,213

Food Bank for Larimer County 29,475

Top 10 Food Banks -- Gardening (lbs. harvested)

Table 8

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CASE STUDYFood Gatherers Food Bank

As described by Chief Program O�cer 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. �e 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-��h 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 su�ciently equipped.

Food Gatherers’ half-acre farm has been in operation since 2009 and is run by Farm Manager Dan Calderone, a former operations sta� member. Volunteers help maintain and harvest the farm. Originally funded by a grant from P�zer, 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 bene�ts, but in the end the costs of increasing operations have proven too great to move forward.

�e 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.

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 o� 50% of their produce at Food Gatherers’ warehouse. While

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. �e 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 P�zer’s Big Idea Grant, which has funded most of its local agriculture and fresh produce programs. �e 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 o�er 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, Ann Arbor, MI

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CASE STUDYOregon Food Bank

�e 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, a�ordable and appropriate food supply through traditional, nonemergency channels, OFB focuses on what gardening sta� describe as two sides of their mission – to provide emergency food relief, and to address the root causes of food insecurity. About �ve years ago, while searching for food sources, the food bank’s food research developers realized that OFB’s location in a major agricultural area o�ered the opportunity to connect farmers and producers with the food bank, and therefore to people in need. �is 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. �rough Farmers Ending Hunger, OFB sources produce grown for donation from farmers throughout the state, distributing di�erent 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. �e 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. Sta� 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.

�e Learning Gardens o�er 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 volunteer-taught, and are hosted at community centers, senior homes, and a�ordable 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 ful�ll a requirement in the Master Gardener certi�cation program through nonpro�ts such as the Lettuce Grow Garden Foundation.

�e Dig In! volunteer program is a hands-on service-learning opportunity based at two Learning Gardens in the Portland area. �e 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. �e bulk of the harvest goes into the emergency food system, although the goal of the gardens is not to produce, but to educate.

�e 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 sta� 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

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allow all interested volunteers to participate. cipate.

�e 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. �e Gardens comprise a number of large, production-style rows and a series of demonstration gardens that show how people can con�gure 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 sta� added a greenhouse to start seedlings. In 2012, 4,200 plants from the greenhouse were distributed to partner agencies, and sta� 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 sta� 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 sta�, should the food bank be in the business of farming, or should it convene individuals and organizations to discuss access to healthy foods? While sta� do not expect to increase the number or size of gardens or to make them more production-oriented, 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

“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.”

Students’ activity chart from the Westside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank

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Westside Learning Garden, Oregon Food Bank, Portland, OR

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 “�rst 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:

• The Food Bank of Western Massachusettswas one of the earliest food banks to start its own farm, on 60 acres in Hadley, in 1992. �e commercial Mountain View Farm leases it from the food bank, in exchange for 100,000 pounds of fresh, chemical-free produce annually. • The Community Food Bank of SouthernArizona in Tucson operates two community farms, in addition to a demonstration and market garden and a home gardens support program. �e 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. • TheNewHampshireFoodBank, aprogramof Catholic Charities in Manchester, runs three small farms, including one that operates a small farm business incubation program for refugees. • Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh, NorthCarolina, also runs training farms and is pro�led in a case study below. • AlsoprofiledinacasestudybelowareSecondHarvest 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 re�ect the range of these activities include:

• TheFoodBankforNewYorkCityparticipatesin 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. • TheRegionalFoodBankofNortheasternNewYork 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. • TheChester County Food Bank, profiled ina 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.

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle 2,475,000

Chester County Food Bank 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

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County 93,000

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank 60,000

FreeStore/FoodBank, Inc. 60,000

SHARE 56,000

Top 10 Food Banks -- Farming (lbs. harvested)

Table 9

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CASE STUDYSecond Harvest Food Bank of Orange County

Located on an old military base, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County is striking in its state-of-the-art facilities and its proximity to both its own farm – �e Incredible Edible Park – and to the newest local agriculture venture in Irvine, �e Great Park. �e food bank has multiple fresh produce programs, and about half of its sta� 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.

Sta� 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’ Farm-to-Family program. �e 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.

�e 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 o�er 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 �elds to collect le�over produce and to deliver the harvest to the food bank. But he eventually decided it would be more e�cient to start a separate farm that would grow solely for the food bank. �e 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 sta� 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 sta� at the Food Bank of Orange County began to design and develop their fresh produce programs, they spoke to several experts in the �eld. 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.

�e 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 sta� hope to glean more produce from available resources and work with other food relief organizations to scale up their fresh produce operations.

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Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

CASE STUDYChester County Food Bank

�e Chester County Food Bank o�cially 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 di�erent, 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 e�ective organization of 1,200 volunteers and a variety of programs.

�e 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. �e 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 �elds 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. �e food bank

sought to double that purchase the next year. In early 2013, it hired a farmer of its own.

�e Chester County Food Bank is working to transform school food in the poor districts of Pennsylvania’s wealthiest county, which are o�en attended by children of agricultural workers in what remains a vital farming area, including the world’s center of mushroom production around Kennett Square. �e 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. �e 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, a�er school snacks, meals on wheels, and other settings.

�ere are always challenges for food banks, but the biggest faced by Chester County in distributing fresh local produce is the supply chain. �e opening hours of food cupboards do not always �t with harvesting schedules. It is also di�cult 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. Sta� believe this creates good will and trust that inspire others to get involved, leading to increased partnerships, volunteering, and donations.

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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 �ve years, he plans for 50% of the food bank’s total food distributed to be locally grown, fresh produce.

Chester County Food Bank, PA

“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.”

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CASE STUDYInter-Faith Food Shuttle

“Food doesn’t �x 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 con�rmed 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. �at was the beginning of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1989.

Shortly therea�er, 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 e�orts 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 land�lls,” 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 e�ective state Good Samaritan Law that would protect farmers from liability when donating produce. In addition to millions of pounds from farmers markets, Inter-Faith also developed its own �eld 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. �is spurred the formation

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; sta� 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. �is means only about one-��h 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, a�er school programs, and home delivery of groceries to low-income seniors. All of this work is done with a combination of paid sta� 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

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community gardens throughout Raleigh and Durham. �e 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. �e 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.

�e Food Shuttle runs two farms, each supporting multiple programs: the �rst on 6 acres of leased land on the outskirts of Raleigh, and the second on 2 acres in Carrboro. Sta� estimate harvesting 16,000 pounds annually through the e�orts of 2,000 volunteers. �e farms include hoop-houses, worm composting, and aquaponic demonstration modeled a�er 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. �e Food Shuttle also participates in a national program called Cra�-Up, in which young farmers intern with experienced farmers. �e average farmer in the US is 57 years of age), an e�ort to give young people paths to employment and preserve the tradition of small- to mid-scale farming.

In a related e�ort to attack poverty and workforce development in other parts of the food sector, Inter-Faith’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. �e 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 di�culties for both volunteers and clients. With a budget of over $2 million per year and 60 paid sta�, there is constant �nancial 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.

“Jill realized that the obstacles to families’ access to fresh, healthy food were not only economic, but also geographic and educational.”

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no child in the state goes hungry.

Inter-faith Food Shuttle, Raleigh, NC

CASE STUDYCapital 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 o�en stem from people not eating well. �e 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 �nancially 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 sta� member and a farm manager led to a partnership with Clagett Farm, located in southern Maryland. �e food bank has received 30,000 pounds of fresh produce annually from this farm for the past ten years. �e 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

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. �e remaining 30% of Clagett Farm’s product for the food bank is sold in CSAs at signi�cantly 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. �is 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 o�ers 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. �e 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

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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.

�e Fresh Produce Grant and From the Ground Up programs have certainly impacted the demand for fresh produce at partner agencies. �e grant program is in high demand, and clients who have been involved at the farm have recognized the di�erence in taste and quality that locally sourced produce o�ers.

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 nonpro�t farm that plans to grow 1 million pounds of food for donation to the CAFB. Farm partnerships o�er 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. �is is an ongoing question for the food bank as its local produce programs continue to evolve.

“From the Ground Up focuses on educating and empowering partner agencies and clients through lessons on growing produce, sustainability, and food justice.”

40Capital Area Food Bank, D.C. Images Courtesy of Capital Area Food Bank, D.C.

As discussed in the introduction and summary of �ndings, 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 a�liates, although the quantity is di�cult to estimate given that produce from these settings is o�en 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. �e 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

(40%), Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (41%), food banks in California, and others pro�led 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.

�e 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.

�e large gleaning programs that source “seconds” from commercial growers illustrate an e�cient way that federal and state emergency food programs, which are already tied to commodity surplus, could adapt their supply chains to source signi�cantly more fruits and vegetables. �e 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).

CONCLUSIONPolicy Implications and Opportunities

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

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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. • At the municipal or county level, localgovernments and their nonpro�t 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. �is 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 o�en require equipment upgrades, mainly for refrigeration, in order to e�ectively manage the distribution of more fresh produce – and some of the food banks pro�led in this report have assisted their member cupboards with these capital improvements and supply chain management. Although some e�ort is required, garden and small farm support programs represent some of the most e�cient 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

�is can take the form of:

• Promoting farmers’ awareness of gleaningopportunities and associated tax bene�ts, which some food banks already do, but which state agricultural extension and other public sector farm support programs could disseminate further. • Tying incentives in federal and state hungerrelief programs to the proportion of produce they distribute. • Reimbursing food banks for purchase andtransportation costs of moving produce, particularly in the TEFAP Bonus and state food purchase programs. • Replicatingstatewideprogramssuchasthosein California and Arizona, which Feeding America and its members are already seeking to do.

�e 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. �e 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:

• Congress and the USDA could create anational 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 pro�led above illustrate. �e Community Food Projects program in the Farm Bill, together with other federal and state agriculture and community

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Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, CA

Community Food Forest, Portland Fruit Tree Project, Portland, OR

emergency food system. �ese 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.

43

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. �ese 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. Du�y, 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 A�andilian 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. �ey 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 �rough 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_�e_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/get�le?dDocName=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.

ENDNOTES

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�e 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 di�erent sta� 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?

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 e�orts underway to �nd 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 di�cult or facilitate it? Is there an example of a policy enacted in response to an identi�ed 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 bene�cial? 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?

APPENDIXInterview Questions

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