Solving for Hunger By Increasing Local Food Security
This holiday season, a Feeding America analysis estimates that 15 million more people will live in food insecure homes in the U.S. this year, compared with pre-pandemic estimates.
Shockingly, food banks have seen a 60 percent increase in demand compared to this time last year. Thankfully, food banks and pantries have taken on this responsibility of feeding our citizens but that responsibility is slowly shifting.
Previously, food banks that supplied mostly canned goods are now expanding to accommodate more and more fresh food. National and regional food-bank organizations now connect gardeners and farmers, like you, with places to donate within their communities so that they can better handle the challenges of getting fresh food to those in need. Thus sharing the responsibility of feeding those in need.
We hope that us Citizen Farmers will take up this call to action to help solve hunger in our country. Growing, harvesting, and sharing food are perfect catalysts for cultivating community. And what better way to cultivate community than to be generous with our time, talents, and harvest than to grow your community even larger…and sharing with those in need?
Even more than sharing our food, we hope we can also teach those in need to join in the planting, growing and harvesting of their own food to truly solve the problem of food insecurity. By sharing our knowledge, our vision is that food banks will no longer carry the weight of the hungry.
We desperately need gardeners and farmers everywhere with a giving spirit, in food and knowledge. From inner cities to rural areas and everywhere in between. It’s a Jewish tradition called Pe’ah to donate “the corners of the fields” to those in need and that’s been an institution that’s only kept going throughout my own Citizen Farmers journey—and, truly, generosity is at the heart of what Citizen Farmers live everyday.
To join in this calling of giving, we’ve put together some tips for increasing local food security in your area.
Find out the specific needs of the population served by the food pantry to which you are planning to donate. Pay particular attention to culturally specific food preferences so that you are growing appropriate fruit and vegetable varieties. Consider what is not available, or not available affordably, in local markets.
Give more of one thing rather than a little of many things. Everything you give will most likely be appreciated, but a handful of potatoes or a bag of cooking greens will feed a family more adequately than three radishes and a couple of carrots will. Go for quantity when you plant for those in need.
Keep it simple. Except for specifically desired or culturally appropriate crops, keep the varieties pretty darned basic. Growing for those in need is not the time for the fancy lettuces and lemon cucumbers, unless you intend to be there to explain what everything is and how to use it.
Package items appropriately. Find out specifically how the food pantry distributes fresh food, and package your donations in a way that matches the system. Some pantries put fresh food in buckets or baskets on tables, and the food pantry clients choose for themselves. Others like to give out washed and weighed family-size bags. Ask if there is refrigerated storage, if food needs to be washed (some crops, such as greens, degrade when washed so this is not always preferred), when is the best time to drop things off, and if there are other practices that work well for the pantry to which you donate and the clientele that is served.
Do not donate anything that you and your family would not use. The food pantry is not the place for the rotting tomatoes and the tasteless, oversized zucchini! Of course, if it’s something in good condition that you just don’t like, then share with those who might.
Get involved. Volunteer to help with the actual distribution of the food. You will find out firsthand what works and what doesn’t, and you may even be able to propose ways to do things more effectively. You most likely will discover that providing fresh food to those in need is more fun and uplifting that you think, and you will certainly learn more about both gardening and humanity (as well as how to say “lettuce” and “potato” in several other languages).
So how will you get involved? Tag us in your Instagram photos using #CitizenFarmers so we can spread a message of generosity and hope.