Urban Farmers Receive Millions Here in CT

"Every year, the US Department of Agriculture devotes millions of dollars to farmers in rural areas.
The government is increasingly starting to offer assistance to urban farms, too.

In 2016, the USDA funded a dozen urban farms, the highest number in history, Val Dolicini, the administrator for the USDA Farm Services Agency, tells Business Insider.

USDA Microloans, a program that offers funding up to $50,000, is specifically geared toward urban farmers. Established in 2013, the program has awarded 23,000 loans worth $518 million to farms in California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Though it is open to all farmers, urban farmers often apply for it because it offers the money on a smaller scale than other programs. Seventy percent (or about 16,100 of those loans) have gone to new farmers, many of them in cities."

Source: CT Post, 12/27/16,  Read More...

Federal Farm Subsidies Don't Help, May Hurt, Low-Income Americans

A new study investigates whether US farm subsidy policies help the food consumption and nutritional well-being of low-income Americans. It focuses on the poor, because they are especially vulnerable to changes in food prices. On net, the study finds, the impact of these subsidy programs on US consumer prices is tiny.

It concludes that farm programs do not affect food prices in a way that protects the poor. The people whose incomes are most improved by farm policies are not those at risk of poverty and hunger. The study finds, farm subsidies may compete for budget dollars with federal nutrition assistance programs that help poor people. Government spending on farm subsidies may reduce spending on SNAP and school lunch subsidies, and other food and nutrition programs in the USDA budget.

Source: American Enterprise Institute, 1/9/17, Farm Subsidies

Seed Pods take Root

Last summer Foodshare's Food Sourcing Manager received a call from Feeding America with a large supply of 50,000 seed pods from MiracleGro. Together with our Community Engagement Team, we were successful in distributing over 40,000 seeds that will now be used for various community-based projects.

To highlight just a few of those projects:

• Bristol Housing will be using the seeds for a gardening project with their elderly residents. A portion will also be used to coincide with their “Reading is Fun” program for children. Each child who participates will help to plant the veggies, keeping whatever they grow. 

• Hartford Food System is currently using the seed pods both with the early learning center program, the Little City Sprouts, and as a giveaway on their Hartford Mobile Market.

• Trinity College Community Garden will be using the seeds for their Read and Seed project.

• Knox seed pods will be donated to all twenty community gardens within their network. Gardeners will donate much of the produce that is grown to local food banks and community kitchens.

Thank you to MiracleGro for this unexpected donation, and to all the individuals and organizations exponentially "growing" good in the community as a result!

Cigna garden raises money and produce!

Judy Hartling (CIGNA Civic Affairs Senior Specialist), James Arena-DeRosa (Foodshare President & CEO), and Beth Henry (VP Global Marketing Operations at CIGNA and Foodshare Board Member).

The Cigna garden was first planted four years ago to raise healthy food for our hungry neighbors who may not otherwise have access. Since that time, Cigna employees have donated over 1,000 pounds of company-grown vegetables and herbs.

Employees can also sponsor a row of the garden for $100. This year’s sponsorship program raised more than $2,800 for Foodshare, supporting our ongoing work to solve hunger in Greater Hartford!

Homemade Veggies

These little miracles showed up in Foodshare's break room today, and though they may look ordinary, they represent a number of breakthroughs. First, they were grown in a tower garden, which is an aeroponic system--the plants grow without soil, just a nutrient mist sprayed on dangling roots. These small systems (smaller than a Christmas tree) can produce a harvest every four weeks year-round.

The tower garden that produced these particular vegetables is one of three that are part of a pilot program being run by the Upper Albany Hunger Action Team. The principle is that these kinds of gardens, which take up very little space and can be maintained indoors, are ideally suited to urban neighborhoods like Upper Albany. And they are far more productive that conventional gardens: those three tower gardens are currently feeding 15 families year-round with various lettuce and tomato varieties, pak choy, cucumbers, peppers, melons, Brussels sprouts, and kale. This is the kind of innovative, locally tailored solution that Hunger Action Teams are finding across our region.

FROM HEROIN MARKET TO FARMERS’ MARKET

Marvin Gaye Park sits in Lincoln Heights, a Washington, D.C. neighborhood that is overwhelmingly poor and non-white and suffers some of the worst rates of crime, unemployment, and social breakdown in the city. By 2000, the park was in disuse, and one of the worst drug markets in the city had cropped up nearby. So Lincoln Heights residents and Washington Parks and People—an urban park organization—stepped in. They transformed the park, using 85,000 volunteers to move nine million pounds of trash and debris. Crime dropped over 50%, playgrounds rose, and a farmers market replaced the drug market. Lastly, they created a 1¼-acre farm right in the middle of the park: 41 raised beds, a small hoop house, a composting operation, and fairly intensive crop rotation. 

Source: Think Progress, 9/18/14, Urban Farming