The numbers are in: Farm to Food Pantry continues to make a big impact

Nichole Garden
WSDA Food Assistance Program

Washington onions are one of many crops bought
thanks to the Farm to Food Pantry initiative. 

Veterans Farm at Orting is a 160-acre swath of land nestled at the foot of Mount Rainier which serves as a farm incubator for beginning veteran farmers by leasing them parcels of land where they can learn to grow and raise food. This year, three of its farmers are growing food for Nourish, a Pierce County-based non-profit contracting with WSDA’s Farm to Food Pantry (F2FP) initiative. This initiative, established in 2014, is a partnership between WSDA and Harvest Against Hunger (HAH) that creates ways for Washingtonians in need to receive fresh food from local farmers and gives an economic boost to the local farms. 

Because of the initiative, Nourish is able to support the Orting farmers by purchasing their food directly. This partnership is mirrored across the state as F2FP continues to grow. 

Each of the Orting veteran farmers contributes a unique mix of products. Mark Jacobs of Jacobs Agro supplies hearty greens, such as collards and kale, as well as onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Jillian Locascio of Dancing Sprouts Farm sells Nourish a bounty of greens, including spinach and bok choy. Terry and Regina Strong of Strong Roots Farm sent over summer squash, melons, cucumbers, and some of the 22 varieties of cherry tomatoes they grew.

Carrie Little, who manages the farm through the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs, says it’s gratifying to “watch these amazing humans get excited about growing food” as they develop solid relationships with organizations that pay them for their products. And, she adds, the farmers love knowing that their food is feeding community members who need it. Nourish is also happy with the arrangement and has earmarked extra funds to buy even more from the Orting operation. 

New partnerships like these are making a significant impact. According to the Farm to Food Pantry Annual Report 2020, hunger relief organizations across the state combined grant funds with match dollars to purchase more than 105,000 pounds of produce from 97 farms to feed residents in need across 23 counties in Washington in 2020. Participating farms also donated a whopping 448,153 pounds of surplus produce through Farm to Food Pantry.

With even more funding available this year, thanks to a significant investment from the state legislature, WSDA expects those numbers to continue to grow.

Grant applications

The 2022-2023 Farm to Food Pantry grant application is now open. In addition to produce, the initiative will allow purchases of grains, dairy, eggs, and meat during this grant round. Grants will also provide administrative funding to support the coordination of these efforts.

Applications are now being accepted from prospective Farm to Food Pantry regional agencies through November 30. Recipients will receive a biennial allocation, with between $3,500 and $20,000 available from January 1 through June 30, 2022 and between $3,500 and $30,000 from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023. 

Washington grown spinach.

Organizations that receive a grant to build new relationships with their local farmer through procurement, or enhance their current relationships, will not do s
o in a vacuum. WSDA and Harvest Against Hunger provide ongoing support, including monthly cohort meetings for participating organizations as well as technical support and resources, such as the Grower’s Roundtable Kit, a contracting guide and farm contract templates, purchasing calendar template, and fundraising guidance.

By connecting farmers and hunger relief organizations and encouraging community investment, Farm to Food Pantry is meeting key goals of WSDA’s Focus on Food initiative: increasing access to fresh, nutrient-dense foods for people experiencing food insecurity; supporting Washington agriculture; and facilitating connections between food providers and producers at the regional level. 

People, no matter what their income, want to know that food grown in their community is feeding the people that live there. This initiative helps make that possible by giving emergency food providers across the state greater flexibility to buy food grown and raised by local farmers. WSDA and HAH are proud to help facilitate these connections.

Apply now to become a regional agency through 2023. Access the grant materials here and contact Maddie Price by email or calling 206-236-0408 x105 with questions about the grant or the Farm to Food Pantry initiative. 

WSDA joins the national call to reduce food waste

Chris McGann
Communications

In the U.S., more than one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste. Food is the single largest type of waste in our daily trash.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1.3 billion tons of food worth nearly $680 billion are wasted each year. In Washington, more than 350,000 tons of edible food was disposed of in landfills in 2015.

WSDA Director Derek Sandison (L) speaks
with a colleague at the NASDA conference.
* credit NASDA 

For the industry that feeds the world and also depends on limited, costly and increasingly scarce resources, that’s an unsustainable problem that needs to be addressed and it’s one of the big issues addressed this month at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) annual meeting.

NASDA, a non-profit organization supporting agriculture, held its annual conference in New Mexico this year, drawing agriculture leaders from around the country, including WSDA Director Derek Sandison. Conference attendees discuss a broad range of food policy issues, including food waste.

Director Sandison joined NASDA members at the meeting as they adopted a new policy on food waste that follows the group’s “Pledge to End Food Waste.”

"Agriculture both defines and demands sustainability," he said. "It’s too costly to the agriculture industry, the environment and the people who rely on the nutritious food we work so hard to produce to let it go to waste."

WSDA has joined NASDA's pledge to support:

• public policies that offer opportunities to reduce, recover and recycle food waste.
• efforts to improve coordination and communication among federal, state and municipal stakeholders to use resources more efficiently and effectively to address food waste.
• the food waste hierarchy framework.
• research efforts and new technologies that address reduction and recovery of food waste.

Waste reduction in Washington 

Washington state has already adopted a waste-reduction goal shared by our federal partners.

For more than a year, WSDA worked with lawmakers, stakeholders and other agencies to craft food-waste-reduction legislation that was passed this year.

The newly approved legislation directs the state Department of Ecology to develop a plan to cut food-waste in half by 2030 in consultation with WSDA and the Department of Health.

To achieve that waste-reduction goal, the first step is preventing food waste in the first place, then rescuing edible food that would go to waste and getting it to hungry people. When that’s not possible, recovering the nutrients in that food through composting and anaerobic digesters is another option.

WSDA's role in waste reduction 

WSDA is leading two stakeholder engagement groups – one for food businesses and one for hunger relief professionals.

This month, WSDA organized a meeting of stakeholders from Kroger, Washington Hospitality Association, Pasco Farmers Market, the Washington Dairy Council and the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. The group shared ideas, voiced their concerns, and let us know what they’ve been doing to to reduce food waste in their respective industries.

Over the coming months, WSDA will engage experts in food safety, food waste collection and conversion, education and behavioral change, hunger relief and food business as partners in developing the plan.

Drafts of the Washington Food Waste Reduction Plan are scheduled to be available in spring 2020, with a final plan ready by September 2020.

Fighting hunger together

Nichole Garden
WSDA Food Assistance 

Food pantries, hunger relief agencies, and others dedicated to fighting hunger will gather in Yakima September 12th – 14th for the Washington Food Coalition (WFC) conference. The annual conference provides a unique opportunity for those interested in hunger relief in Washington to share best practices, tools, and resources; hear about new and innovative programs and services; and network with others who share in a commitment to alleviate hunger.

The conference will feature speakers, breakout sessions, and tours, including:

• Keynote speakers discussing the growth of food insecurity on college campuses 
• A panel discussion with current Farm to Food Pantry participants
• Touring Rainier Fruit, a family owned and operated farm that grows and sells organic apples, pears, cherries, and blueberries

In addition to facilitating the Farm to Food Pantry panel discussion, the WSDA will staff a booth. Attendees can visit the WSDA Food Assistance programs resource booth to show their support of the Farm to Food Pantry initiative by donning a F2FP temporary tattoo, posing for a picture, and posting it on social media with the hashtag #Farm2FoodPantry.

Cow proudly displaying F2FP "tattoo"

WSDA’s resource booth will also feature new resources now available in English, Spanish, Russian, and Ukrainian. These resources include Washington Grown Produce posters and brochures as well as MyPantry posters and recipe cards highlighting where the commodity foods available at food pantries fit into USDA’s MyPlate. 

Visit WFC’s website o learn more or register for the conference. WFC represents a unified voice in the emergency food system, providing technical assistance and advocacy for hunger relief agencies.

Farm to Food Pantry– a win-win for farmers and food pantries

Nichole Garden
Food Assistance 

The Washington State Department of Agriculture’s (WSDA) Food Assistance programs, in partnership with Rotary First Harvest, is kicking off the fifth year of its Farm to Food Pantry initiative. The goal is to make more fresh produce available to hungry people by connecting local farms to food pantries. This initiative also helps promote a community-based food system, increasing the viability and success of both agricultural producers and emergency food assistance providers.

What is the Farm to Food Pantry Initiative?

WSDA contracts with Rotary First Harvest of Seattle to coordinate the allocation of grant funds. These funds are distributed to lead agencies involved in the emergency food system that, in turn, use the money to buy produce directly from local growers. These lead agencies are asked to obtain matching funds from private groups, in some cases doubling the amount available to purchase produce.

What’s New?

WSDA has launched a Farm to Food Pantry Seal that lead agencies, food pantries, farmers, and donors can use to display their participation in the initiative. The seal was created as part of a collaboration between WSDA and Farm to Food Pantry participants. Elements included in the seal  came from the feedback we received when speaking with the farmers, food pantries and lead agencies that will use it. This seal is meant to give farmers a marketing tool for their produce and food pantries a tool to leverage additional donations.

What Impact is the Initiative Making?

Since our pilot in 2014, WSDA has invested $98,467 in the initiative, with $77,000 of that going directly to farmers. Farmers also received $52,181 in local match and SNAP-Ed funding for a grand total of $129,181 targeted for farm direct purchases. This resulted in food pantries receiving over 395,882 lbs. of purchased, donated, and/or gleaned, nutrient dense produce to distribute to low-income families in the state of Washington.

Next Steps

This year, WSDA has carved out $33,000 in existing state and SNAP-Ed funds to pay local farmers in 18 Washington counties. These counties include: Asotin, Chelan, Clallam, Clark, Columbia, Ferry, Garfield, Island, Jefferson, King, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Skagit, Snohomish, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, and Yakima. In addition to the 12 lead agencies participating in 2017, Opportunities Industrialization Center in Yakima and the South King County Food Coalition in Des Moines are joining the initiative for the first time.

Where can I Learn More?

More details on the initiative, with feedback from the participating food pantries and farmers are included in the 2017 Farm to Food Pantry Report. Visit our Farm to Food Pantry webpage  to review the report, past reports and learn more about our project. 

Farm to Kids

Ele Watts
WSDA Regional Markets

What if you could improve a person’s health for their lifetime through early education and positive experiences with healthy eating? At WSDA, our Regional Markets Team is promoting Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE) to make that vision a reality.

Attendees making salad with Washington grown produce.

Farm to ECE has three main components:

• Education
• Experiential learning
• Local food procurement

Farm to ECE enhances life-long health and wellness of children, their families and caregivers by exposing them to positive food experiences and improving access to local, healthy foods.

During the last week in March, WSDA hosted a series of workshops for childcare and early education providers across the state. The workshops provided in-depth, hands-on training on Harvest for Healthy Kids, an innovative free curriculum for young children focused on fruits and vegetables which includes:

Harvest to Healthy Kids trainer conducts interactive workshop.

• lesson plans
• activities
• recipes
• vocabulary lists
• family newsletters
• art projects 

Attendees learned songs about berries; learned to prepare a simple cabbage, apple, and carrot salad and discussed age-appropriate food exploration activities for children from birth to five years old. The workshop also included training on how to purchase and use Washington grown fruits and vegetables from local food outlets (i.e. farmers markets and food hubs) in early learning facilities.

The workshops were a collaboration between WSDA, the Washington State Department of Early Learning, and trainers from the Mount Hood Community College Head Start and Early Head Start Programs and was funded through a Specialty Crop Block Grant. For more information about Farm to ECE, contact Ele Watts.

Farm to food pantry – getting fresh produce to hungry people

Hector Castro

Communications

For the past three years, WSDA’s Food Assistance Programs have been managing a pilot program with the goal of getting more fresh produce into local food banks, while at the same time connecting local farms to the non-profits feeding the hungry in their communities.

Through the Farm to Food Pantry pilot program, WSDA has provided grants to food banks that, in turn, use the money to buy produce directly from local growers. Recently, the Food Assistance Programs staff partnered with the Washington State Dairy Council to conduct a tour of one local farm providing fresh produce to a local food pantry to showcase this effort.

Touring the HopeLink Food
Pantry.

The Dairy Council produced the brief video of the tour, featured in this article, which includes remarks from WSDA Director Derek Sandison and Deputy Director Kirk Robinson.

In 2015, the Farm to Food Pantry program provided $14,000 in grant funding to six food pantries in Snohomish, Chelan, King, Okanogan, Clark and Stevens counties. Rotary First Harvest of Seattle was contracted to coordinate the distribution of these funds and local operations.

Most of the organizations also obtained matching funds from private groups, in some cases doubling the amount of funding they received. More details on the pilot project with feedback from the participating food banks are included in the “2015 Farm to Food Pantry Purchasing Report.”