Despite being one of the wealthiest regions in the U.S., the Bay Area is home to hundreds of thousands of people who experience food insecurity and lack access to healthy food. These are critical public health issues, as poor diets lead to chronic disease and impact the body’s ability to heal and fight off infections. Like other indicators of health, there are troubling racial and economic disparities in healthy food access, which have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has also taken a significant economic toll on American farmers due to changing demands for commodities. The pandemic caused both shocks in supply and demand that left consumers with localized food shortages, while farmers dealt with an excess of milk, livestock, and perishable products. At the same time, the persistent racialized economic and public health related inequalities as well systemic injustices intersects with the impacts of COVID-19 and collective efforts to to develop potentially innovative responses that aim to address the food and economic insecurity fallout from the pandemic, while simultaneously identifying the intersections, obstacles and opportunities with efforts to advance racial equity within both the mainstream food assistance response, but especially to assess it within this alternative regional food system based response.
In response, our project partner Fresh Approach and other non-profit organizations secured USDA contracts to develop an alternative model to the conventional approach of large distributors and food banks. This model purchased food from local farms, assembled it into produce boxes, and distributed it to Bay Area community-based organizations who disseminated the food to the community members in need. This model reached tens of thousands of households, served >50 community-based organizations, and invested >$1.5 million into dozens of local small farms. Organizers prioritized sourcing from farmers of color, women and immigrant-owned farms, urban farms, and organic farms.
This project will focus on produce box recipients’ food access, farmers’ economic security, trust built among farmers and non-profits, and the potential of this model to improve racial equity, reduce costs, and advance distributive & procedural justice.
Our study assesses the economic impacts of farmers’ participation in this program, the implications for recipients of the produce boxes, and the spatial patterns of this effort, identifying this as a potential model for linking emergency food security assistance with building back a more sustainable and equitable regionally rooted food system. We also assess the impact of this new food system on food security and food sovereignty for individuals receiving the produce boxes, the effect on their supporting community-based organizations, and how this system mitigates the new food access challenges precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we identify best practices by farmers and aggregators within this network that can be shared across this northern CA based food system, and to harvest lessons learned for broader social change and food system reform efforts across the US.
A summary of the Farm Fresh Food Relief (FFFR) initiative and our findings thus are detailed in the fact sheet below:
