THE HARTFORD FOOD SYSTEM
A Guide to Developing Community Food Programs
Replication
Manual
The Hartford Food System
509 Wethersfield Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106
Phone (860) 296-9325
Fax (860) 296-8326
Chairman of Board of Directors: Miguel Escalera
Executive Director: Mark Winne
The Hartford Food System’s mission is to develop an
equitable and sustainable food system capable of
addressing the underlying causes of hunger and poor
nutrition. To this end, the Hartford Food System
promotes community economic development, provides
training and technical assistance, develops and delivers
programs and advocates for responsible public policy
This manual was created by Dawn Biehler and Melissa Sepos who dedicated a
year of public service as Volunteers in Service to America through World
Hunger Year.
Table of Contents
Foreword/Preface. ...........................................................................................................................i
Chapter 1 - Introduction.................................................................................................................1
Chapter 2 - Hartford Food System: An Organizational Profile
Elements of a Food System: A Hartford Case Study ........................................................................7
History.............................................................................................................................................10
Chapter 3 - Program: Community Food Projects at Work
Farmers’ Markets ............................................................................................................................15
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program................................................................................................17
Farmers’ Market Pantry Coupons ...................................................................................................19
Main Street Market .........................................................................................................................20
Holcomb Community Supported Agriculture Farm........................................................................23
Farm to School Program .................................................................................................................28
Food Policy Commission ................................................................................................................31
Northeast Partnership. .....................................................................................................................35
Chapter 4 - Personnel . ................................................................................................................ 37
Chapter 5 - Finances. ................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 6 - Results and Evaluation. ........................................................................................... 47
Chapter 7 - Replication Guide
Steps to Implementing Local Food System Projects ...................................................................... 51
Creating a Farmers’ Market and a Public Main Street Market........................................................57
Adding a Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program.....................................................................58
Establishing a Farmers’ Market Pantry Coupons Program .............................................................61
Implementing a Grocery Delivery Service......................................................................................63
Starting a Community Supported Agriculture Farm .......................................................................65
Creating a Farm to School Program ................................................................................................72
Modeling a Food Policy Commission After the City of Hartford’s. ...............................................79
Resources ..................................................................................................................................... 85
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ 87
Appendices ................................................................................................................................... 88
FOREWORD - i
Foreword
World Hunger Year (WHY), a national clearinghouse of innovative solutions to end hunger
and poverty by fostering self-reliance, in partnership with the Corporation for National
Service (CNS) Americorps*VISTA program, embarked on a year-long journey with eight
outstanding community-based organizations in 1997. These grassroots nonprofits are
remarkable for their proven track records in transforming lives, enhancing their cities or
regions by equipping poor people with the tools that they need to be self-reliant. Their
successes, accomplished by drawing upon the talents and resources already available on the
local level, seized our attention and inspired us to produce comprehensive replication
manuals of their work.
Staffed by AmeriCorps*VISTA Volunteers, the WHY Replication Project sought to discover
the secrets behind their achievements and to identify the elements of their programs that
could be introduced to other communities around the nation. We are delighted to share the
final products of our work with you. Our hope is that this particular manual will be a
blueprint for you to adopt the core principles, concepts, and philosophies of Hartford Food
System and create a new working model sustainable food system in your community.
These eight organizations are part of WHY's Reinvesting In America program, which has
spent the past eight years on the road investigating hundreds of the most accomplished and
innovative organizations fighting hunger and poverty on the front lines in the United States.
These grassroots organizations are taking a holistic approach to their community's problems
and are working with their clients to help them realize that it is within their own power to
move toward self-reliance. We have documented our research and organized the
information into a database of more than three thousand seven hundred community-based
organizations.
The model organizations in our database provide practical education, life skills,
entrepreneurial training, job training, access to food, community-supported agriculture, food
security, after school programs, transitional housing, and initiatives that stimulate and grow
regional economies. They are helping to move hungry, homeless, and chronically
unemployed people from welfare to work.
The best of these grassroots organizations are providing competent, caring services that help
poor people regain the self-reliance and self-esteem they need to restore their own lives.
They offer a road map back to a healthy American society. Of the thousands of grassroots
programs WHY has evaluated, eight particular programs were seen to be so effective and
replicable that we have designated them to the replication project. Certain common
characteristics can be recognized in these model programs, including such effective elements
as: addressing unmet needs; involving their communities; intervening early; fostering selfreliance; seeking partnerships; being well-managed; and understanding that charity without
social change is insufficient.
These replication manuals suggest progressive models for rebuilding the infrastructure of
how the United States delivers its social services. Appalachian Center for Economic
i
ii - FOREWORD
Networks is a coalition of small/family businesses in Ohio that share a professional kitchen
facility and engage in joint marketing of their specialty food products. The Bridge project
of the Southwest Leadership Foundation matches local churches with homeless families in
Phoenix, Arizona to sponsor transitional middle-income housing. California Emergency
Foodlink, based in Sacramento, trains and employs the homeless, the previously jobless, and
welfare recipients to salvage fresh and packaged food for 1.5 million hungry Californians
each month. Esperanza Unida is a Milwaukee organization that both assists Hispanic
workers at workers compensation and unemployment insurance hearings and runs revenuegenerating on-the-job training centers in fields such as auto mechanics, welding,
construction, and day care. The Hartford Food System is dedicated to the development of
an equitable and sustainable food system in Connecticut by connecting farmers with the
people most in need of fresh produce. LA’s BEST is a citywide after school enrichment
program in Los Angeles that has become a national model of partnership among schools,
city government, and private funders. Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore helps
economically disadvantaged women identify unmet community and business needs and
assists them in creating businesses to fill those needs. The Women's Bean Project teaches
work skills to economically disenfranchised women in Denver by employing them in a small
gourmet bean and soup packing and catalog sales operation.
Each of these programs has been unusually effective in accomplishing its goals. Because
they offer solutions to such systemic inequities as poverty and unemployment, and because
the nationwide welfare-to-work mandate has created an extraordinary urgency to prepare
welfare recipients for useful jobs, these programs have been the focus of much interest on
the part of other grassroots organizations and community groups. Given the current work
requirements of federal and state welfare reform legislation, there is a tremendous
opportunity for government and private funders to support fundamental social change by
forming partnerships with successful and effective local organizations. These strategic
alliances would enhance the widespread replication of the most innovative of these local
programs on a national scale. By creating these partnerships with local, state, and federal
governments, we can develop a positive and meaningful social policy.
There are a number of cautions that should be noted by the prospective replicator. An
established agency that is looking to expand must first evaluate its community’s needs.
While the conceptual framework of a model program is generally transferable, its particulars
are bound to undergo variations in being transplanted to a new locale. The principles upon
which the model program is based will apply best when the necessary adjustments are
tailored to the characteristics of the population you aim to serve. While it is true that
replication is not the same as duplication -- applying a cookie-cutter approach to a problem –
awareness of certain inevitable mistakes that the model program committed in its own
learning process will be most beneficial to your efforts. Studying these errors will help you
to not reinvent the wheel, avoiding similar pitfalls in the replication process.
In addition, the role of evaluation is crucial from the outset, using measurable criteria to
continually assess what is and is not working. Since both individuals and communities are
unique, the replication manual cannot be considered the authoritative answer to all of the
problems that you will encounter. Undoubtedly, your own creativity in surmounting
obstacles will write new chapters in the guidebook! Finally, humane social change requires
treating human beings in need with dignity and respect. These programs are exemplars of
ii
FOREWORD - iii
decent and compassionate behavior between social service agencies and their clients, an
element without which the structure of a program will be sterile. More than any other
factor, it is the spirit that animates the program that engendered its success in changing lives
and communities.
WHY would like to thank several people for their help and support in creating the
replication manuals.
Special thanks are due to Bill Ayres, WHY's Executive Director, for his creative vision and
support.
We are especially grateful to Jim Scheibel, formerly of the Corporation for National Service,
for taking on the dream and allowing us the privilege to work as a national project with
seventeen VISTAs at eight local sites to conduct our research. Thanks also to Kelly Daly
and Crystal Biles of CNS Americorps*VISTA for providing the necessary training and
support for our work. Once CNS formally approved the project, we never could have
gotten it off the ground and into action without the help and support of our VISTA Leader,
Jeff King.
This particular manual was made possible by the dedicated staff at Hartford Food System.
In particular, we would like to thank Mark Winne, Executive Director of HFS. Most
importantly, we would like to thank Dawn Biehler and Melissa Sepos for giving a year of
service to this project and for dedicating their time and talents to its implementation. It has
been an absolute joy and pleasure to work with such wonderful people.
The final versions of the manuals were produced with the invaluable editing assistance of
Selma Arnold and Vincent Romano. Thanks as well to Frank Brunckhorst for underwriting
the final stage of the project and for making it possible to print this guidebook.
Finally, it has been my pleasure and privilege to direct this project. It is my hope that these
manuals will inspire you to adopt these creative models to help strengthen and build your
community.
Noreen Springstead
Program Director, WHY
March 1999
iii
iv - PREFACE
Preface
Dear Reader,
Somewhere in America, right now, at this very moment, there is a grassroots program that is
helping hundreds or even thousands of people deal with the ravages of hunger and poverty.
These programs are not simply providing emergency food and shelter. They are helping
people most in need, people often viewed as beyond help, to move from welfare to work at
a living wage, and from despair to hope. If the best of these programs could be replicated all
over the country, hunger would be virtually eliminated and poverty significantly decreased.
The problem, of course, is that all of these successful, innovative programs are local, and as
such, reach only a small percentage of the people who need them. How can we replicate
these programs so that they can become regional and even national and meet the true scale
of the problem?
As we have talked to dozens of leaders of replicable model programs over the years, the
common need we have heard was for material they could give people who were inquiring
about their program. They were simply too busy to produce a “how to” manual for
replication. That is precisely what you are reading now. Hopefully, you will use it to bring
this highly effective and creative program to your community – and beyond.
Best wishes for your good work,
Bill Ayres
Executive Director, WHY
iv
INTRODUCTION - 1
INTRODUCTION
A recent study by Second Harvest, a national network of food banks, found that
more than ten percent of the US population relies on emergency food providers to
augment its food supply. While emergency food sources serve as a safety net for
hungry Americans, grassroots work aimed at developing sustainable, long-term
solutions to hunger has emerged, often in tandem with emergency food programs,
over the past twenty years. This movement’s approach is to empower communities
and individuals with the means to obtain their own food rather than provide the
food itself. Such strategies attack hunger at its roots, while attempting to build longrange and comprehensive responses to local food problems.
For the past twenty years, the Hartford Food System has worked to develop a
sustainable food system in Hartford, Connecticut. The concept of a food system
encompasses all of the processes that take food from seed to plate, and all of the
factors -- economic, social, environmental, cultural, political, and geographical -- that
affect those processes. HFS emphasizes strong links within the local food system.
For instance, the loss of connections between area farmers and urban consumers
caused by food importation has been one of HFS’s primary concerns. HFS fosters
better community networks to restore links such as those between farmer and
consumer, while developing and implementing plans for a sustainable local food
supply.
The Hartford Food System began by identifying the community’s needs and
resources along with gaps in services, and then developed programs in response to
its findings. For instance, when it found that residents had limited access to fresh,
affordable food, and that local farmers did not have sufficient market outlets for
their produce, Hartford Food System responded by establishing farmers’ markets,
and, later, by connecting farmers with Hartford public schools’ cafeterias. These
responses tightened the relationship between growers and consumers.
This guide provides models for implementing programs to strengthen and develop
local food systems. Programs like the farmers’ markets, food policy councils, and
nutrition education have long-term effects that bridge many components of the food
system. For example, nutrition education promotes healthy eating habits, including
consumption of locally grown foods, while strengthening local farms.
The Food System
Food systems exist on a variety of levels: in communities, towns, cities, states,
regions, and countries. Each food system is unique but lies nested within larger,
more encompassing, interconnected global food systems. Networks linking farms
with cities, community gardens with low-income urban residents, growers with
1
2 - INTRODUCTION
consumers, shippers with distributors, Cooperative Extension agents with people in
need of nutrition information, all act as the blood vessels of food systems.
With the rise of globalization in every facet of life, the food system becomes global
as well. The world economic system, food preservation technologies, and the speed
of current transportation make it possible for almost every nation in the world to
participate in the import and export of food. For most Americans, this has meant a
great proliferation of food choices -- supermarkets and specialty food stores allow us
to purchase almost any kind of food we want at any time of the year.
This wide array of choices has come at a cost to our control over our local food
supply, landscape, and economy. Consumers often can not find a local tomato or
apple at a supermarket, although many prefer the taste and quality of local produce.
Small farmers feel this loss of local control in the increasing difficulty of maintaining
their livelihood. Although farmers’ operating costs rise with inflation, international
competition forces prices to stay low, and farmers’ cut of the total food dollar
remains abysmal. Reliance on a food supply grown outside one’s region also may
cause undesirable changes in both the regional landscape and landscapes far away.
Both locally and abroad, agricultural pesticides enter our food and the ecosystem,
and irrigation practices deplete aquifers. Small area farms go out of business and
rural land is developed for non-agricultural uses. These are just a few examples of
how geographic distance fragments consumers from producers and the land that
grows their food. In short, globalization has made the world more interconnected
than ever in terms of the exchange of food commodities, but consumers are
increasingly disconnected from the food system’s environmental and social impacts.
Low-income people face another set of challenges within the food system. Food
claims a large portion of their already-strained budgets, competing with the cost of
shelter, utilities, and medicine. Often these people are at risk for hunger because
they have trouble making ends meet, but they do not necessarily experience
prolonged periods without food. Government food assistance plays a role in
ensuring basic needs, but the welfare reform of 1996 has placed limits on how long
low-income people can receive benefits such as food stamps and cash assistance.
Food banks and the network of emergency food providers they supply also help to
fill the food gap. While emergency food services are intended to provide food for
needy individuals and families when difficult times arise, more and more people
come to rely upon them for a greater share of their food. Food pantry and soup
kitchen workers report that the same people return for meals again and again. With
food banks struggling to keep up with the demands of a hungry populace and policy
makers placing time limits on welfare benefits, many advocates concerned with lowincome people continue to look for solutions that eliminate hunger at its roots.
From the Roots Up
Community food security is a growing movement that developed as people involved
in grassroots activism, ranging from sustainable agriculture to community
development to food banks, began to realize that they could work together against
hunger and the loss of local agriculture. The Community Food Security Coalition
2
GLOBALIZATION
IS
UNDERMINING
DISTRI-
BUTION
AND
TO
OF
ACCESS
LOCALLY
GROWN
FOOD
FOR
FARMERS
AND
CONSUMERS,
AS
WELL
AS
HARMING
THE
ENVIR-
ONMENT.
INTRODUCTION - 3
defines community food security as “all persons in a community having access to
culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate food through local, non-emergency
sources at all times.” The concept is based on the food security idea, which has long
been used in international work relating to the food supplies of developing nations.
Community food security is a condition of a healthy, functioning, local food system.
Community food security advocates work to fill gaps in community resources, such
as poor access to locally-grown produce, lack of markets for local farmers, or public
transit that fails to connect residents to supermarkets. Community food security
develops comprehensive solutions through a methodology that addresses the roots
of community problems. We define community broadly to include people within a
local geographic area that reaches beyond the boundaries of one neighborhood or
city. For example, the Hartford Food System is interested in serving the needs of
low-income Hartford residents and area farmers alike, and all residents of the
Greater Hartford region may enjoy improved access to fresh, locally-grown food as a
result of HFS’s programs.
Community members representing businesses,
government, non-profits and the public build a coalition to integrate their services,
define existing needs and available resources, and discern what resources need to be
developed. As these collaborators draw together, questions such as these will arise:
How can our communities be linked to address the underlying causes of food
insecurity? How can our communities create programs to fill gaps in the food
system? How can our communities join to create a food system that is sustainable
for the long term? Some of the answers to these questions will involve initiating
businesses, food policies, and educational programs, as well as bolstering existing
resources such as local growers and markets.
The Hartford Food System, Inc.
In 1977 Catherine Lerza of the Public Resource Center in Washington DC, at the
behest of the Hartford City Council and several organizations, prepared a study to
address the emerging problems in Hartford’s food supply and the possibilities for
creating an urban food system. It found rising food prices, chronic flaws in the food
distribution system, and a vulnerable food supply. In response to these conditions, it
recommended the creation of food system elements that would lead Hartford’s
residents to greater food self-sufficiency, cut costs associated with the current food
distribution system, and thus reduce household grocery bills.
The creation of farmers’ markets was the first step. In addition, a group of local
collaborators began to form an organization to coordinate Hartford’s efforts toward
developing a stronger local food system. The Hartford Food System was created as
a hub of a number of neighborhood-based programs, farmers’ markets, community
gardens, food buying clubs, and solar greenhouses. Over the years HFS has come to
act more as an incubator for community-based food programs. Hartford Food
System will initiate a program with a number of collaborators, operate the program
until it works smoothly, and then select a lead organization or institution from one of
the collaborating groups to carry on the project.
3
COMMUNITY
FOOD
SECURITY
ACCESS
IS
TO
CULTURALLY
ACCEPTABLE,
NUTR-
ITIONALLY
ADEQUATE
FOOD
THROUGH
LOCAL,
NON-
EMERGENCY
SOURCES
FOR
ALL
PEOPLE
ALL
AT
TIMES.
4 - INTRODUCTION
Today, the Hartford Food System uses the concept and methodology of community
food security to shape its food system. Its mission is to develop an equitable and
sustainable food system capable of addressing the underlying causes of hunger and poor nutrition.
To this end, the Hartford Food System promotes community economic
development, provides training and technical assistance, develops and delivers
programs, and advocates for responsible public policy. Currently, HFS’s projects fall
into four program areas: distribution, production, education, and policy.
Distribution: Establishes direct-marketing possibilities and programs to broaden
the customer base for local growers and improve food access for the community,
especially low-income people. Its projects include Farmers’ Markets, a Farmers’
Market Nutrition Program, Farmers’ Market Pantry Coupons, a Farm to School
Program, Main Street Market, and a Grocery Delivery Service.
Production: Works to increase local food production to provide a sustainable
source of healthy, fresh produce. Its project is the Holcomb Farm Community
Supported Agriculture Project.
Education: Long-term goal is to make purchasing and eating locally grown produce
a life-long habit among young people. Its project is a farm to school program called
Farm Fresh Start.
Policy: To share and coordinate resources and information among food-concerned
organizations on a variety of levels. Its projects include the City of Hartford
Advisory Commission on Food Policy, the State of Connecticut Food Policy
Council, the Northeast Partnership, and the Community Food Security Coalition.
Research, Policy, and Training
The Hartford Food System operates or is involved in a number of programs that are
not necessarily replicable. Nonetheless, these programs influence community food
security and the food system and thus bear mention.
Hartford Food System has hosted a number of research projects because they
provide valuable information about the state of food and hunger in the community
and the nation. This information is used to identify needs and gaps in the food
system, for program development, and to assess existing programs and resources.
Currently, the Hartford Food System is hosting a Ph.D. candidate who is conducting
a community needs assessment and a household food security survey in Hartford.
Past projects have included support for the Connecticut Farmers’ Market Nutrition
Program Annual Surveys and Toward Food Security in Connecticut, a state food policy
white paper.
While research can identify needs on some levels, it cannot initiate change alone.
Through the years, Hartford Food System has participated in many task forces,
commissions, councils, and conferences, which have led to the development of
programs including Hartford’s Food Policy Commission, the Northeast Partnership,
the Connecticut Food Policy Council, and the Community Food Security Coalition.
While these initiatives have become major components of the food system and
4
INTRODUCTION - 5
proponents of food security, we will only discuss how to replicate the Food Policy
Commission. The other programs are advanced food projects and require greater
community food project experience. We recommend joining rather than replicating
the Northeast Partnership and the Community Food Security Coalition.
Personnel
The Hartford Food System has always maintained a small staff. It has deliberately
avoided becoming a large bureaucratic or overly institutionalized agency. This is
partially in response to its unstated mission of developing the capacity of others to
build projects, policies, and organizations that will improve their food system.
HFS programs such as the WIC/Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program and Project
Farm Fresh Start were effectively assumed by government agencies. The Knox
Parks Foundation took over the community gardens. The farmers acquired the
capacity to direct their markets themselves. Hartford Farms was purchased by its
manager to be run as a private business, and the emergency food banking effort
developed its own organizational capacity under Foodshare to manage its own
affairs.
Under the above scenario, it is only necessary for HFS to maintain a full-time
professional staff of two to four people, including the Executive Director. These
people perform the key program research, development, and management functions.
The Executive Director also manages most of the fundraising and general
administrative functions. Two additional permanent part-time staff members are
generally maintained to perform bookkeeping, office management, clerical, and
occasionally program duties.
The final (but increasingly important) part of HFS’s staffing are interns, apprentices,
and Americorps*VISTA volunteers. In recent years, there usually have been two
interns or VISTAs at any one time, who assist with a variety of organizing and
research tasks (HFS has generally asked interns to staff the City of Hartford Food
Policy Commission). From April to November, HFS’s CSA farm will employ three
to five apprentices as farmworkers.
Funding
In recent years the annual Hartford Food System budget has ranged from three to
four hundred thousand dollars. About sixty percent of these expenditures are
dedicated to personnel costs. Communication, including phone, printing, copying,
and travel represent the next largest category of outlays. Non-personnel farm
expenses, including seed, equipment, plants, and soil amendments, have been the
next biggest cost. Farm capital expenditures have totaled more than one hundred
thousand dollars over the project’s six year history.
The organization’s income is of course directly related to fundraising. HFS has a
highly diverse and extensive list of funders, which include government (local, state,
and federal), churches, individuals, businesses, and foundations. Including CSA
member share purchases, individuals now provide about twenty-five percent of
5
6 - INTRODUCTION
HFS’s annual income. Government grants and payments are about ten percent. The
balance comes from a long list of churches, corporations, and foundations (two or
three national foundations together provide fifteen percent of the funding).
Results
The redemption rate of HFS’s pantry coupons has been sixty percent over the
duration of the program. A private consulting firm conducting a study in 1997 of
Main Street Market found that customers overwhelmingly expressed support for the
Market, particularly for its ambiance, produce, and entertainment. Teachers report
that their students are more receptive to trying new foods that they have seen in
Farm to School classes. In 1997, the CSA farm distributed over one hundred
seventeen thousand pounds of food to an estimated three thousand Hartford
residents, and household share cost was about eighty-seven dollars less than the
market value of a comparable food basket from a conventional chain supermarket.
Policy Implications
The formation of the Community Food Security Coalition, the passage of the
Community Food Project Grant program, and the recently announced USDA
Community Food Security Initiative are direct and indirect policy outgrowths of the
HFS model.
Replicating Aspects of the Organization
In Chapter Two we elaborate upon the concepts of food systems and community
food security, which are essential for understanding Hartford Food System’s
approach to community food problems, and present a detailed history of the
organization’s work. In Chapter Three we profile HFS’s programs to familiarize you
with how they have worked to bridge Hartford’s food gaps. Chapters Four, Five,
and Six present information on HFS’s personnel, finances, and the results of its
programs. Chapter Seven is a step-by-step implementation guide for HFS’s
programs.
Our final note to those who will establish food system projects: look to your own
community’s needs and resources for guidance in developing food system projects.
No two communities are alike; each one enjoys different strengths and faces
different challenges. HFS’s programs are designed to fill gaps in Hartford’s food
system; other communities’ needs and resources are likely to be vastly different.
Your community’s needs will determine what programs to implement and at what
pace to implement them. HFS’s experience shows that a comprehensive food
system develops through incremental steps. The processes of collaboration and
assessment will enable you to move more effectively into the program development
phase. Therefore, we recommend collaboration building and food system
assessment as the first two steps in developing a secure community food system. We
detail these processes in the final chapter.
6
LOOK
YOUR
TO
OWN
COMMUNITY'S
NEEDS
AND
RESOURCES
FOR
GUIDANCE
IN
DEVELOPING
FOOD
SYSTEM
PROJECTS.
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE - 7
HARTFORD FOOD SYSTEM: AN
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
Elements of a Food System − A Hartford
Case Study
The means by which our food is produced, distributed, and consumed form a
tangled web that is under the simultaneous influence of local and global economics,
environmental quality, cultural trends, and many other factors. We tried to diagram a
food system to make the concept easier to understand, but the resulting page filled
with crossing arrows made it too confusing! Instead, we have laid out many of the
elements influencing a food system using Hartford as a case study. As you build
collaborations within your own food system, it is important to consider factors
similar to those that influenced the development of the Hartford Food System and
continue to direct our program and policy directions.
Hartford is located in the Northeastern U.S., where climate limits the growing
season. Because of historical, cultural, economic, and geographical factors, most
New England farms continue to be small and family-owned. The development of
national transportation and agricultural systems made the Midwest America’s
breadbasket. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, the food system operates at an
increasingly global scale. Consequently, about eighty-five percent of Connecticut’s
food supply is imported from other states or countries. These factors have placed
New England farmers in a worsening competitive position with the rise of national
and global food economies. For example, even at the height of apple season in
October, Connecticut farmers must compete against cheap prices for apples from
Washington and New York states.
New England farmers, and Connecticut farmers in particular, face additional
challenges from within the region. Planning policies fail to contain urban and
suburban sprawl, and Connecticut farmland increasingly lies at the edge of
development. New residents are drawn to the beauty of rural areas, but can be
hostile toward the noises and smells of farming. Neighbor complaints lead to
restrictive zoning policies that cramp growers’ freedom to farm. The momentum of
sprawl drives up land prices, and when combined with rising property taxes makes it
difficult for farmers to keep their land. The average age of farmers in Connecticut is
fifty-six, which indicates that the profession is aging rapidly with little replenishment
from younger generations. The bottom line is that between 1940 and 1987,
Connecticut lost seventy-three percent of its farmland.
7
8 - ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
People concerned about the environment, the food supply, and human health
question the sustainability of Connecticut agriculture. Since the 1970’s, broad-based
movements have rallied against the use of chemical pesticides and synthetic
fertilizers, favoring organic agricultural practices to protect human health and the
environment.
Organic practices also emphasize soil management, which
conventional agriculture often neglects. The transportation system that imports so
much of Connecticut’s food supply also raises environmental and health concerns.
The average meal eaten in Connecticut travels one thousand three hundred miles
from farm to plate, largely via the trucking industry. Along the way trucks burn
fossil fuels, contributing to air pollution and greenhouse gases. Relying on an
imported food supply also detracts from local growers’ livelihood, threatening
farmland, open space, and the rural character of small Connecticut towns.
Another element of a strong local food system is a healthy and diverse economy.
Unemployment in Hartford is around ten percent, among the highest in the US.
While many of the businesses in Hartford are hiring, the skills that these companies
seek often do not match those found in Hartford’s unemployed population. In
Hartford, social service agencies for unemployed or homeless people have begun
using food-related entrepreneurships and food preparation skills to help clients enter
the work force, enabling clients to participate more fully in the economy.
Since 1968, the number of supermarkets in Hartford has dwindled from thirteen to
two. As affluent residents moved into the suburbs, supermarkets followed.
Currently, thirty-nine percent of households in Hartford do not own a vehicle − as
compared to five percent in the surrounding towns − making a large proportion of
Hartford residents dependent on public transit for daily activities, such as getting to
work and grocery shopping. Hartford’s public bus system does not offer direct
routes from neighborhoods lacking supermarkets to the two remaining stores, which
exacerbates the difficulty of carrying grocery bags home. Taxis seem to be a
convenient alternative to buses, but cab fares take a significant bite out of alreadystrained grocery budgets. Many transit-dependent people choose to walk to the
corner grocery store rather than undertake the difficult bus trip, but corner stores
often have high-prices and fail to stock basic components of a nutritious diet.
THE
AVERAGE
MEAL
EATEN
IN
CONNECTICUT
TRAVELS
1,300
MILES
FROM
FARM
TO
PLATE,
LARGELY
VIA
THE
TRUCKING
INDUSTRY.
IN
THE
PAST
THIRTY
YEARS,
THE
NUMBER
SUPERMARKETS
8
IN
HARTFORD
HAS
SHRUNK
FROM
THIRTEEN
TWO.
Many households depend on supermarkets for most of their food supply because
they provide a wide range of food choices at low prices. Small grocery stores, many
of which are family-owned, serve limited markets of convenience and people without
automobiles. Often, supermarkets are not a viable marketing outlet for small local
farmers, because farmers cannot consistently provide the quantity and quality of
products required, except when crops are in season. Farmers have not always
viewed cities as places also to sell their produce. In recent history, farmers’ markets
appeared in Hartford neighborhoods only after community organizations mobilized
them. While farmers have turned to direct marketing methods such as farmers’
markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) to reach customers and cut out
the middle man, which results in a better price for their produce, many organizations
use these methods to bring much-needed produce to urban residents.
OF
TO
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE - 9
Most Americans spend only eleven percent of their disposable income on food. The
poorest households in the U.S. spend more than one-third of their disposable
income on food. For low-income people in Hartford and elsewhere, even this
portion of their income cannot keep them well fed. Government agencies and
private charities have stepped in to fill this gap. Public assistance programs like food
stamps provide additional income that can be spent only on food. Welfare reform
has placed limits on many of these programs. The National School Lunch and
Breakfast Programs (NSLP) furnish children from low-income families with free or
reduced-price meals at school. Private charities such as churches and community
organizations provide emergency food to needy people. The food banks that supply
these emergency food providers are largely dependent upon donations to keep the
agencies well stocked.
Malnutrition and improper diet often contribute to poor health. While the USDA
recommends five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, a study by the
University of Connecticut and the Hartford Hispanic Health Council, Community
Nutrition Problems Among Latino Children, revealed that low-income children in
Hartford consumed only .67 servings of vegetables and 2.34 servings of fruits a day.
Most of the fruit servings were juices and fruit drinks, which are not ideal sources of
dietary requirements. Poor nutrition in children has been shown to hinder their
physical and mental development. While nutrition problems among Hartford’s adult
population have not been well studied, residents do experience high rates of chronic
diseases that have been linked to poor diet, including cardiovascular diseases,
diabetes, and hypertension. Over the years, a number of Hartford agencies,
including public schools, Cooperative Extension and private organizations, have
responded to the high incidence of nutrition-related disorders with nutrition
education campaigns.
Since its inception, the Hartford Food System has gained greater awareness of and
sensitivity to these issues. HFS, working with its collaborators, develops program
responses based on these influences. The following diagram shows how these
factors came together to form Hartford Food System’s direction during 1993-1995.
The Community Food Security Coalition
We highly recommend membership in the Coalition for all organizations interested
in community food issues. The Community Food Security Coalition is a national
network of organizations founded to encourage development of integrated food
systems. This national coalition works to influence and write food policy, connect
diverse food advocates through its quarterly newsletter, and provide training and
technical assistance for community food projects and the creation of local and
regional coalitions. It came together as food-related groups rallied to support USDA
Community Food Projects funding as part of the 1996 Federal Farm Bill. Prior to its
founding, networks between food system advocates were poorly established and
often ineffective. The Coalition was the first national organization to bring diverse
advocates together to work for community food security. More than four hundred
organizations and individuals concerned with community gardens, nutrition
education, farmland preservation, social justice, neighborhood revitalization, anti-
9
THE
POOREST
U.S.
HOUSE-
HOLDS
SPEND
THREE
AS
TIMES
MUCH
FOOD
ON
FROM
THEIR
DISPOSABLE
INCOME
AS
AVERAGE
HOUSEHOLDS.
10 - ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
hunger advocacy, food banking, sustainable agriculture, and many other issues are
members of the Coalition.
It has published Community Food Security: A Guide to Concept, Design, and Implementation,
as well as Community Food Projects: 1997 Project Planning Guide to aid applicants in the
most recent round of USDA local food project grants (see Resources). The
Coalition provides opportunities for members to exchange information and to help
each other solve food system problems.
History
Over the years, Hartford Food System has collaborated with a wide range of
constituencies in Hartford, always striving to involve diverse community members.
HFS has demonstrated that it is often necessary to form collaborations among
people who work in community and economic development, community gardens,
sustainable agriculture, farming, nutrition, education, urban revitalization, emergency
food providers, farmland preservation, anti-hunger advocates, policy makers, and
social service providers as well as community residents.
There have been many factors that have influenced the development of the Hartford
Food System and its programs. Food price inflation, a growing awareness of the link
10
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE - 11
between nutrition and health, supermarket abandonment of the inner city, a loss of
farmland and regional food self-reliance, the environmental movement, urban blight,
and poverty all provided the initial context for HFS’s founding and its early
programs.
Over the course of the organization’s twenty-one year history, however, problems
and issues changed, and so did HFS’s programs. Inflation subsided as a major factor
in people’s lives, government’s commitment to reducing poverty declined, and
evidence of hunger became more apparent and widespread. While the priority of
certain issues and problems has changed over the years, Hartford Food System has
stayed focused on its central mission: to develop an equitable and sustainable food
system capable of addressing the underlying causes of hunger and poor nutrition.
In response to food price inflation and the lack of affordable food resources in the
city, HFS worked from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s to develop community
gardens, farmers’ markets, food buying clubs, community greenhouses, and a
community cannery. All of these projects were developed with the intent of
reducing the cost of food to inner city residents. Dozens of organizations, ranging
from small neighborhood groups to large institutions like the University of
Connecticut, collaborated with HFS to implement these initiatives.
Some of these projects are described in later sections of this manual, but it is worth
noting that some succeeded in realizing their objectives and some failed outright,
while others were modified. And this is how it should be. Most of us do not
succeed in everything we try, and that certainly is true of something as challenging as
community development. However, if we have a process in place to collect data and
feedback on our work, evaluate our results, assess changing conditions -- external as
well as internal -- and make strategic decisions, then change can be both inevitable
and desirable.
Community gardens were a relatively successful way to involve lower-income
neighborhood residents in improving their own community, while making a modest
contribution to the food supply. Under the direction of one of the Hartford Food
System’s early partners, the Knox Parks Foundation, they have continued to flourish,
though at times struggle; more recently, the gardens show promise of becoming
more substantial urban agriculture enterprises. As many as twenty community
garden sites exist today, serving about five hundred gardeners.
On the other hand, food buying clubs were never able to realize their potential in
low-income neighborhoods. They demanded a level of commitment and time that
their members were never able to give. The savings from buying clubs were not
substantial enough to make the volunteer member time commitment seem
worthwhile. After three years, HFS abandoned its staffing commitment to the food
buying clubs, ultimately leading to the demise of all four clubs, which served about
seventy-five households at the time.
An even more ambitious attempt in the mid-1980s to make affordable food available
to lower-income neighborhood residents through cooperative enterprise also failed.
11
MANY
HFS’S
OF
FIRST
PROJECTS
ATTEMPTED
TO
TURN
BACK
THE
RISING
COST
OF
FOOD.
12 - ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
HFS played a major role in developing and assisting a cooperative supermarket that
was set up in a thirteen thousand square foot supermarket formerly operated by
A&P. While over one thousand two hundred residents purchased shares in what
was known as Our Store Cooperative, the cost and know-how of running a highquality and competitively-priced supermarket was beyond the financial and
management capacity of the community and co-op’s members. After two years of
service, and an even shorter-lived attempt by a private interest, the store closed for
good.
One more attempt was made to resolve the failure of the food retail marketplace in
Hartford. Since they had a captive market, small mom and pop or bodega food
stores were the only economically viable ones in the city. However, their prices were
often thirty percent higher than those in suburban supermarkets. HFS began
organizing them into a purchasing co-op, operating under the theory that if they
could buy their goods at a lower wholesale cost, they would pass the savings along to
their customers in the form of lower retail prices. The members of the small store
co-op, which reached twenty-five stores at its peak, were able to reduce their
wholesale costs for most of their goods, but rarely reduced their prices. A greater
problem, however, proved to be the lack of solidarity among the grocers. Once the
co-op negotiated a lower price from a wholesale supplier, individual stores would
“break ranks” when another supplier would offer individual co-op members a
slightly lower price. By using this “divide and conquer” strategy, the strength of the
co-op began to dissipate and mistrust undercut the ability to negotiate good deals.
From this point on, HFS shifted its food store strategy. It began to advocate more
aggressively to both the supermarket industry as well as the city and state economic
development departments to retain and improve supermarkets. This more
conventional strategy acknowledged the power of market forces that could not be
overcome by well-intentioned but often under-financed alternative efforts. It
recognized, however, that public subsidy, and in some cases effective community
organizing, could tip the economic balance in favor of the public interest.
The results have been as follows: the first chain supermarket in Hartford in twenty
years opened in 1994, and two new independent supermarkets opened in Hartford in
the next three years. Another chain supermarket changed ownership, remodeled,
and now is operating at a profitable level. Public transportation to supermarkets has
improved, and due to price information and opposition to a supermarket merge,
most Hartford shoppers are paying prices comparable to those paid by more affluent
suburban shoppers.
As one very direct way to address food access problems, HFS introduced a grocery
delivery service for homebound senior citizens. The service, which initially operated
out of the Our Store Co-op, gave disabled and frail elderly an opportunity to buy
affordable groceries that were delivered to their homes with no delivery fee. HFS
still runs this service that delivers food to approximately one hundred senior citizens
every month.
12
HFS’S
EFFORTS
WITH
CITY
SUPERMARKETS
MADE
HARTFORD
SHOPPERS
PAY
PRICES
COMPARABLE
TO
SUBURBAN
SUPERMARKET
PRICES.
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE - 13
Like community gardens, community greenhouses are another form of urban
agriculture. HFS constructed two structures in the early 1980s. They produced
seedlings for the community gardens and, to a much lesser degree, some greenhousegrown vegetables. Like the co-ops, however, community residents lacked sufficient
interest, motivation, and expertise to gain much value from the greenhouses. Even
under the best of circumstances, the greenhouses did not offer sufficient potential to
produce very much food.
At this point, HFS decided to adapt the evolving hydroponic greenhouse technology
to an urban environment. In 1984 HFS opened a thirteen thousand square foot
commercial hydroponic greenhouse in a joint partnership with two other nonprofit
organizations. The business, known as Hartford Farms, operated profitably,
produced tens of thousands of pounds of produce (mostly lettuce and herbs)
annually, and employed four to six workers.
Farmers’ markets were HFS’s first and most successful endeavor. In a city that
longed for fresh, affordable produce, and for farmers who could not make a living
selling their produce to wholesalers, farmers’ markets were a natural bridge. The
Hartford Farmers’ Market was Connecticut’s first since World War Two, today there
are sixty across the state. HFS aided the growth of these markets through example,
organizing farmers and farmers’ organizations, and promoting a local food system
that could only be tasted at a farmers’ market. HFS then instituted and operated the
Connecticut Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, a jointly funded state and federal
program that started with twenty thousand dollars in 1986 and expanded to over five
hundred thousand dollars today. This program currently serves fifty-five thousand
low-income women, children, and seniors, and provides a market for one hundred
seventy farmers.
In Hartford, HFS also opened and staffed a downtown public market that added a
business development component to the farmers’ market. Known as the Main Street
Market, this venture gave twenty start-up food businesses a chance to become viable
by selling at a highly visible location and a very low cost. This market closed in 1997
because of renewed development interest in downtown Hartford, but several
elements of the market, including the farmers, moved to a new location across the
street.
As the 1980s became the 1990s, yet another significant food issue gained
momentum: organic food and sustainable agriculture. The “Alar Scare,” the growing
popularity of organically grown food, and the development of alternative production
and marketing methods such as community supported agriculture (CSA) impacted
HFS’s work directly. They raised an important question for HFS: in a city where it
was often difficult to buy any fresh produce at a reasonable price, how could one
ever expect to make organically grown produce available to a low-income
population?
HFS addressed this question through farm stands and CSAs. It set up special sites in
several low-income neighborhoods where residents could buy organically grown
Connecticut produce at reasonable prices. In 1993 HFS was given its most
13
14 - ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
extraordinary opportunity ever. The Town of Granby (a thirty-minute drive from
Hartford) gave HFS a chance to start a community supported agriculture farm on
sixteen acres of a three hundred-acre farm it owned. The land was put to use as an
organic vegetable farm that would eventually distribute over one hundred twenty
thousand pounds of fresh produce to five hundred households, half of which are
low-income residents of Hartford.
Projects like farmers’ markets, farm stands, and CSAs always had a secondary
purpose: to educate the public about food. They take advantage of the opportunity
to talk to customers or members about health, the food supply, sustainable
agriculture, and cooking. In an effort to combine this interest in food education with
an on-going interest in creating more markets for farmers, HFS founded Project
Farm Fresh Start. The intent of this project was to increase the purchasing of locally
produced food by the twenty-five thousand students in Hartford’s school system.
Over the course of four years, HFS was able to revise the school system’s menu and
procurement procedures so as to increase their use of local produce by almost one
hundred thousand pounds annually. Additionally, it created and implemented a food
education curriculum that focused on locally grown food and linked classroom
learning to what was being grown on the farm and served in the cafeteria.
At the same time that these early projects were testing their wings in the early 1980s,
federal support for food assistance programs like food stamps and WIC began to
diminish, and demand at the city’s few soup kitchens and food pantries, almost
simultaneously, shot up. In response, HFS led efforts by as many as thirty churches
and social service organizations to establish Foodshare, the first food bank
warehouse in north central Connecticut. Today Foodshare employs sixteen people
and distributes millions of pounds of donated food annually to one hundred seventyfive food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters in the greater Hartford area.
Initially as a defensive response to cuts in food programs, but later as a proactive
strategy to encourage responsible policies, HFS became active in all levels of
government -- local, state, and federal. In collaboration with dozens of
organizations, HFS established and later staffed the City of Hartford Food Policy
Commission. HFS played a major role in establishing the Connecticut Anti-Hunger
Coalition, and later the Connecticut Food Policy Council. At the national level, HFS
was a co-founder of the Community Food Security Coalition that, among other
things, promoted the concept of developing local and regional food systems.
Finally, in response to numerous requests for information, HFS has provided
training and technical assistance to hundreds of communities, organizations, and
individuals throughout the United States. HFS delivers these “T&TA” services in
the form of workshops, books, reports, manuals, speeches, long-term and brief
consultations, e-mail lists, and tours.
14
FOOD
EDUCATION
JUST
IS
AS
IMPORTANT
A
PART
OF
THE
WORK
OF
HFS
AS
FOOD
ACCESS
AND
COST.
PROGRAM - 15
PROGRAM: COMMUNITY FOOD
PROJECTS AT WORK
Farmers’ Markets
Farmers’ markets were the Hartford Food System’s first project. They restore the
link between growers and consumers, support a local food system, and encourage
city dwellers to eat seasonally and purchase locally.
History
Farmers’ markets have a long history in Hartford, reaching back nearly three
hundred fifty years. The markets have been scattered about the city, in
neighborhoods, in the center of town, and for some years at or in the same building
as Connecticut’s government seat. Hartford’s markets have not always flourished,
and just prior to World War II markets in Hartford, and in many other US cities,
failed and disappeared for nearly thirty years.
In the early 1970s, farmers’ markets started cropping up in a few cities around the
nation as communities sought to reconnect local farmers with consumers. Many
people active in the Hartford community, most notably Mayor Athanson, tried to
reintroduce farmers’ markets in Hartford in the mid-1970s. Though a lack of
support frustrated such attempts, inadequate access to fresh produce among many
low-income city dwellers and difficulties small farmers experienced marketing their
goods encouraged several local organizations to pursue farmers’ markets.
Organizations such as Connecticut Citizens’ Action Group (CCAG) saw urban
farmers’ markets as one of the first steps in alleviating these problems and building
strong connections in the local food system. Farmers’ markets bypass supermarkets
and grocery stores, giving farmers a right-sized marketplace for the amount of
produce they grow. Direct sales increase the farmers’ net revenue, and quality
produce becomes affordable and accessible to consumers.
With funding from a Community Development Block Grant, CCAG began to
reintroduce farmers’ markets to Hartford. On July 19, 1978, Connecticut’s first
farmers’ market in fifty years opened on the site of the Old State House in
downtown Hartford, operating twice a week from July into late October. The next
year, Hartford Food System took responsibility for the farmers’ markets as its first
program, opening four additional markets in Hartford’s lower-income
neighborhoods. Farmer participation peaked that year, with twenty-five farmers
selling among the five market sites. As the farmers’ market movement took hold in
Hartford, it also began spreading all over Connecticut.
15
16 - PROGRAM
Farmers’ markets seem to be a difficult business to keep in Hartford. In the mid1980s, Hartford’s neighborhoods began to suffer, and farmers no longer saw the
profits necessary to keep them in the neighborhoods. To counter the loss of the
neighborhood farmers’ markets, HFS started a farm stand program to replace them,
because it could not ignore the benefit that local produce outlets provided to lowincome residents.
The farm stands operated once a week at different neighborhood sites. They were
supplied daily with local, organic produce, and could accept food stamps and
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) coupons. The stands became so
popular they would often sell out hours before their scheduled closing. HFS ran the
farm stands in conjunction with an education awareness program, Project Sustain,
which promoted the stands through posters, contests with prizes, and on-site
tastings. Promotions targeted the diverse populations that the stands served. The
farm stand project’s success, in conjunction with the FMNP coupons, encouraged
farmers to return to the neighborhood markets.
This neighborhood market was one of four during the early 1980s in Hartford
that featured locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The Here and Now
Today there are more than fifty-four farmers’ markets statewide. Four markets
operate in Hartford every season, with an average of seven farmers per site. Hours
16
PROGRAM - 17
of operation vary, but most are open for four hours one to three days per week.
Connecticut Farmers’ Association of Retail Marketing (ConnFARM), which is
comprised of farmers and organized by HFS, assigns farmers to sites and serves as a
contact for all farmers. The Hartford Food System secures sites that, with the
exception of the Main Street Market, have no permanent stands.
Through the years the farmers’ markets have been the basis of several HFS
programs, including Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs, the local Farmers’ Market
Pantry Coupon Program, and the Main Street Market. We will discuss these
programs in the following sections. Though the markets were originally directed at
low-income Hartford residents who showed a need for fresh, affordable produce, all
Hartford residents have benefited from the markets.
HARTFORD
FARMERS’
MARKETS
MAKE
FRESH,
LOCALLY
GROWN
All farmers are food stamp certified, and average sales exceeded five thousand
dollars, prior to 1996, a year in food stamps. Statewide, farmers take in about five
hundred thousand dollars in farmers’ market coupons. Between ten and thirty
thousand dollars in Food Pantry coupons are distributed yearly. The State
Department of Agriculture tracks FMNP coupons to monitor the extent to which
recipients use farmers.
PRODUCE
AVAILABLE
TO
HARTFORD
RESIDENTS,
ESPECIALLY
LOWER-INCOME
HOUSEHOLDS,
“Farmers Markets are one of the key concepts and key
institutions to reestablish a more sustainable regional
food system.”
Bob Lewis, Chief Marketing Executive, New York State
Department of Agriculture
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program
As farmers’ markets were reestablished throughout Hartford and Connecticut, HFS
created programs to make the markets more accessible to some of the people who
needed them most. One of these programs, the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program
(FMNP), broadens the urban market to include low-income residents who typically
do not use farmers’ markets and have little purchasing power. FMNP has succeeded
in boosting farmers’ market sales across the US.
The History of Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs and HFS
Involvement
In 1987, the Hartford Food System began the Connecticut Farmers’ Market
Nutrition Program (FMNP) pilot, modeled after Massachusetts’ FMNP, in
collaboration with a handful of WIC offices across the state. The Connecticut
Departments of Agriculture and Public Health provided funding. The following
17
AND
OPEN
URBAN
FOR
AREA
THE
MARKET
SMALL
FARMS.
18 - PROGRAM
year, the state legislature funded a program expansion to include another half-dozen
Connecticut WIC programs. At the same time, several more states across the
country adopted their own FMNPs.
From 1988-89, HFS advocacy helped spur the initiation of a federal demonstration
program that funded WIC-FMNP in ten states, including Connecticut. By 1990, the
USDA started supplying seventy percent of each participating state’s WIC-FMNP
budget, with state government agencies required to contribute at least thirty percent
in matching funds. In 1991, HFS turned over administration of Connecticut’s WICFMNP to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture. The following year, WICFMNP was established as a permanent federal food assistance program. Today,
thirty states and four Native American tribal nations operate FNMPs; many of these
began through grassroots demand and support. The National Association of
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs (NAFMNP), created in 1990, monitors the
progress of the program, standardizes FMNP survey questions, and provides
teaching and technical assistance for FMNP agencies. HFS administered NAFMNP
from 1990 to 1996.
In 1988, while seeking federal FMNP funding for WIC clients, HFS extended FMNP
to Connecticut senior citizens living in low-income housing or receiving congregate
meals with funding from state agencies and private sources. The funding for seniors
was only sufficient to support efforts in twelve of Connecticut’s cities and towns.
Connecticut’s FMNP is one of the few that serves groups in addition to WIC clients,
though FMNP provisions allow states to allocate a portion of their match to such
groups. HFS operated Senior-FMNP from 1988 until the state Department of
Agriculture assumed responsibility in 1996.
How It Works in Connecticut
The Connecticut Department of Agriculture distributes packets of vouchers,
redeemable only at certified farmers’ markets, to WIC clients at WIC offices
statewide. Each mother receives ten dollars in coupons per farm market season; she
also receives ten dollars in coupons (which was increased to fifteen dollars per
person in 1998) for each of her one to five year-old children. Clients also receive
brochures listing farmers’ market sites and times, the procedure for using coupons,
and recipes using fresh fruits and vegetables.
Staff at senior housing sites and congregate meals programs distribute ten dollars in
coupons per season to each participant in the Senior-FMNP. The site staff keeps
rosters of seniors who pick up coupons; these rosters are returned to the state
Department of Agriculture for record keeping.
Clients simply redeem the coupons for locally grown produce at any certified
farmers’ market. Connecticut uses bank checks for coupons, so farmers can deposit
them in the bank as they would any check. Farmers sign affidavits certifying that all
coupons were redeemed by WIC clients or seniors.
18
PROGRAM - 19
“The program allowed us to keep farming. Without it
we would have been forced to stop.”
A New Hampshire farmer
“My four year-old, who used to hate fruits and
vegetables, enjoyed getting them from farmers and
started eating more fruits and vegetables.”
A Texas WIC client
Farmers’ Market Pantry Coupons
Emergency food sources have played an expanding role in feeding America’s poorest
population for two decades. While food security activists would like to see the
reliance on emergency food sources decrease, they are also aware that a step like that
takes time. The pantry coupon is a small step in establishing relationships among
emergency food clients and local growers.
How It Works
Modeled after the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, the Farmers’ Market Pantry
Coupon Program was developed and is operated by the Hartford Food System.
Since the program’s inception in 1991, Foodshare, the regional food bank, has
worked alongside HFS to secure private funding for the coupons. Foodshare
distributes about ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars in coupons to thirty local
food pantries, which disseminate the coupons to nearly one thousand households.
Like FMNP, this program not only benefits food-insecure families in Hartford but
also helps support local growers. The coupons can only be used to purchase locally
grown fruits and vegetables and must be redeemed under the FMNP guidelines,
which stipulate that the farmer must be selling fresh produce, be eligible to accept
the coupons, and cannot make change from the sale.
When low-income people are able to purchase their own food, even if the means are
given to them, they tend to feel a pride and dignity that is sometimes lost when they
must depend on food pantries. The short-term outcome is to provide fresh food to
people who can not afford it and are unable to get it from a soup kitchen or food
pantry. The long-term outcome, as shown in FMNP surveys, is that these people
will be more inclined to eat fresh, locally grown produce once they can afford it.
19
ONE
OF
RESULT
THE
FMNP
PROGRAM
THAT
IS
PEOPLE
BECOME
MORE
INCLINED
EAT
TO
FRESH,
LOCALLY
GROWN
PRODUCE
WHEN
CAN
THEY
AFFORD
IT.
20 - PROGRAM
Main Street Market
The Main Street Market is a special kind of farmers’ market in that it more closely
approximates the public market tradition of many cities. It provides a market that is
easily accessible to low-income people, and is an aesthetically attractive place at
which to purchase locally grown produce and specialty foods. It redeems more
farmers’ market coupons than any other market in the state.
MSM
OPENED
A
THRIVING
MARKET
FOR
LOCAL
FARMERS
AND
NEW
History
In the late 1980s, during a recession, development consultants studied Hartford to
recommend uses for vacant lots in the city. One of those recommendations was for
the development of a public farmers’ market on a prime downtown lot. A
collaboration of ten community organizations, including the Hartford Food System,
secured two hundred fifty thousand dollars in funding from the Hartford
Foundation for Public Giving and in-kind labor from a local builders’ union for the
construction of the two Main Street Market three thousand square foot pavilions.
Opened in 1991, the Main Street Market sets itself apart from the other markets in
town because it serves as a public market, not just as a tailgate market. It is ideal for
Hartford because it offers shelter to the farmers and provides room for other food
and merchandise vendors.
BUSINESSES,
MADE
FRESH
FRUITS
AND
VEGETABLES
READILY
AVAILABLE
TO
THOUSANDS
OF
LOW-INCOME
PEOPLE,
AND
PROVIDED
A
GATHERING
SPACE
AND
ENTERTAINMENT
FOR
CITY
RESIDENTS.
Main Street Market.
Providing Produce and Opportunity
A major HFS focus has always been to support local agriculture, particularly small
farmers. To this end the Market provides farmers with an outlet for their produce as
well as providing small-business opportunities to vendors, and serving as a market
and gathering place for city residents and downtown employees. The Market also
gives exposure to local musicians by hiring bands to play during the lunch hour.
20
PROGRAM - 21
The Main Street Market is set in two large open-air barns that can house about
twelve vendors each. The site lies at the heart of Hartford’s business district and is
adjacent to the central transfer station for buses. The area is laid out with a space for
seating and a stage for entertainment purposes. The Market operates from 10:00
a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with farmers selling Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays. Farmers pay five hundred dollars per season to sell at the
market. Other vendors sell everything from prepared food to clothing to flowers out
of a sheltered and lockable facility, which they rent for three hundred dollars a
month.
According to a customer survey, the Market has one to two thousand customers a
day, of whom sixty-four percent purchase from the farmers and about fifty-eight
percent purchase from the vendors (the overlap in the percentages represents more
than one purchase per person). The Market serves a somewhat different clientele
than the neighborhood markets because it attracts many of the forty-five thousand
people who work downtown. The bus route also makes it convenient for Hartford
residents who do not have a farmers’ market in their neighborhood. Because it is so
accessible, the Market redeems about seventy-five thousand dollars in WIC and
senior FMNP coupons a year, more than any other market in the state.
The Market fosters self-reliance by providing low-income people with an accessible
market at which to purchase produce at a reasonable cost, as well as reducing the risk
factor associated with starting a small business by allowing vendors to enter with
nominal capital. Pantry Coupon users, many of whom rarely get to eat fresh fruit
and vegetables, gain a measure of self-reliance because the Market is a centrallylocated and frequented by people from all over the greater Hartford area.
21
22 - PROGRAM
Senior Grocery Delivery Service
Homebound seniors and disabled people experience considerable difficulties with
food access and often have limited resources for food shopping. The Grocery
Delivery Service provides food delivery at no extra cost from a competitively priced
outlet.
History
Since 1986, the Hartford Food System has helped low-income seniors and disabled
people remain independent by operating a free grocery delivery service. Grocery
delivery services were once common among neighborhood food stores, but food
retail has become increasingly depersonalized, making these services rare. For many
homebound seniors, delivery charges take a considerable slice out of an already
modest food budget. HFS has continued the program for twelve years because there
is high demand for a free service by homebound, low-income seniors, and no other
agency has stepped in to fill the need.
Though the program is intended to help low-income seniors who cannot afford to
pay for a delivery service themselves, HFS does not exercise an income limit on
clients. The mean monthly income of clients receiving the service is roughly one
thousand dollars. Most new clients are referred to HFS by caseworkers, hospitals
and friends who already receive the service. HFS also publicizes the program
through newspapers (especially senior columns), newsletters, and fliers distributed to
senior centers.
From 1986 to 1996, HFS employed a part-time coordinator to take orders, manage
shopping volunteers, and make deliveries. In late 1996, HFS began contracting with
a private grocery delivery service that runs its own warehouse and generally delivers
to an upscale clientele. The change allowed HFS to save fifty percent on operating
costs and offer greater flexibility to clients. Price comparisons have shown that the
prices of items through the business are slightly higher than prices in supermarkets,
but prices are far less than the cost of food delivered by small or specialty groceries
who still operate such services. HFS is now responsible for publicizing the service,
acting as a contact for seniors, and securing funding. HFS’s bookkeeper and office
manager spends six to seven hours per week signing new seniors onto the program,
contacting the delivery service, and fielding clients’ questions and complaints.
With funding from the North Central Area Agency on Aging (NCAAA), HFS pays
the cost of delivery, so seniors pay only the cost of groceries. NCAAA allocated
fifteen thousand dollars to HFS in 1997 to fund delivery and administrative costs;
one hundred seniors participated, and more than one thousand two hundred separate
deliveries were made. HFS requires a twenty-five dollar minimum purchase because
of the fifteen-dollar charge per delivery HFS pays to the service. The cost of delivery
is high because of the time required to take each senior’s order, put the order
together, and make the delivery. HFS has tried to contract with a local grocery store
to reduce funding costs, but there are few stores that offer such a service.
22
THE
FREE
DELIVERY
SERVICE
ALLOWS
HFS'
SENIOR
CLIENTS
TO
CONTINUE
LIVING
INDEPENDENTLY
IN
OWN
AND
THEIR
HOMES
PROVIDES
THEM
WITH
A
FULL
SELECTION
FOOD
OF
ITEMS.
PROGRAM - 23
“I love your program and I recommend it to my
friends. I don’t know how I would get my food without
it.”
A senior enrolled in the grocery delivery service
Holcomb Community Supported Agriculture
Farm
The concept of Community-Supported Agriculture originated in Japan, and the
Japanese word for CSA literally translates to “putting the farmer’s face on food.”
CSA is one way to connect consumers with the people, the land, and the processes
that produce their food, encouraging local and seasonal diets and ecologically sound
growing practices. When a CSA is linked to a city, it reinforces the regional
agricultural network and provides urban dwellers with a source of fresh produce.
Community Supported Agriculture: A Growing Movement
Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a movement that began in Japan and
was transplanted to the United States in the mid-1980s. CSAs create a direct
economic partnership, wherein consumers share with growers the risks and rewards
of the farm, bypassing the commodities-based marketing system through which most
food travels from the farm to consumers. Prior to the season’s start, community
members purchase a share, an equally divided portion of the harvest, which they will
23
24 - PROGRAM
pick up at regular distributions throughout the season. CSA farms typically practice
organic, soil-sustaining growing methods.
Today there are nearly six hundred CSA farms across the US and Canada. A typical
CSA sells shares at a single flat rate to household subscribers who pick up their
produce weekly either at the farm or at a central distribution site in their town or city.
The farm’s budget is divided by the projected number of shareholders to determine a
share price. Many CSAs require a work commitment of a few hours per season per
member to keep operating costs low. Often, CSAs offer additional social and
educational attractions, with potlucks, harvest festivals, children’s gardens, and tours.
CSAs are often thought to appeal to only an elite sector of educated people who can
afford to pay three hundred to five hundred dollars in advance for a season’s worth
of organically grown produce. Whether or not this reputation is deserved, some
CSAs are making it their business to broaden their client base to include low-income
community members who have limited access to fresh, organically grown produce.
A Farm for a Broader Community
For a number of years HFS sought an opportunity to start a CSA that would reach
low-income Hartford residents. The goal was to create a new and secure source of
fresh, local, sustainably grown produce for residents in Hartford and the surrounding
region.
In 1993, Friends of Holcomb Farm (FOHF), a non-profit group organized to
manage the three hundred thirty-five acre Holcomb estate in West Granby,
Connecticut, invited HFS to collaborate with it to use the estate’s available farmland.
West Granby is a small town thirty-five minutes northwest of Hartford. The farm,
deeded to the University of Connecticut by owners Tudor and Laura Holcomb and
then passed on to the Town of Granby, was formerly used for conventional
agriculture, including dairy and tobacco. Granby residents favored using the land for
education and agriculture, with outreach programs to benefit Hartford residents. As
FOHF started developing a number of other creative educational, agricultural,
environmental, and artistic projects on the farm estate, HFS signed on to begin a
CSA. In 1994, Holcomb Farm CSA offered thirty-six household shares and five
organization shares for its first season on five acres.
The farm uses organic methods to control pests and practices soil conservation
measures to counter topsoil and nutrient loss and to control weed invasion.
However, the operation of a farm, of course, entails much more knowledge and
experience than we can provide here. This guide will cover the parts of the
Holcomb Farm CSA that differ from a typical CSA. In the Resources section, we
will refer you to publications that can help with other aspects of establishing a farm.
Farm Shares
The Holcomb Farm CSA offers two types of shares, the organization membership
and the household membership. The household membership allows the farm to tap
a relatively affluent base of mostly suburban clients, while the organization
24
THE
CSA
PROVIDES
A
SUSTAINABLE
SOURCE
FRESH,
OF
LOCAL
PRODUCE
TO
THOUSANDS
PEOPLE
COULD
OF
WHO
NOT
OTHERWISE
AFFORD
IT.
PROGRAM - 25
membership keeps the farm accessible to lower-income Hartford residents.
Hartford organizations such as block clubs, senior congregate housing sites, and
youth-at-risk shelters may purchase subsidized, bulk-sized organization shares.
These organizations distribute their shares of produce, which add up to at least half
of the total CSA harvest, to their constituents through a variety of methods that will
be discussed later. A bulk-sized share feeds roughly thirty people for the growing
season, which runs from early June to late October. Families and individuals, mostly
from the suburbs but increasingly from Hartford, purchase the remainder of the
harvest in household shares, which are sized to feed roughly two adults and two
children for the entire growing season.
For the 1998 season, a household share cost three hundred dollars, and an
organizational share, with fifteen times the produce, cost one thousand one hundred
dollars. Hartford Food System uses grants and donations to subsidize the cost of an
organizational share and the purchase of the farm’s capital. The farm aims to be
self-supporting by the year 2000, meaning that grants will be used only to support
the CSAs administrative and educational costs. The Hartford Food System guides
the farm with a three-year plan, and is working toward a share price ratio that allows
the household share price to help pay a portion of the true cost of organization
shares.
In 1997, Holcomb Farm CSA sold approximately one hundred fifty household
shares and 8.5 organization shares and used twelve acres of its sixteen acres for
production, leaving the rest fallow. During the 1997 growing season, the farm
produced and distributed 115,285 pounds of vegetables and fruit, plus pick-yourown vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The fifty varieties of produce encompassed
staples such as tomatoes and potatoes as well as varieties that appeal to diverse
cultural groups.
Holcomb CSA farm Children's Garden.
25
26 - PROGRAM
Hartford Food System’s aspirations for the CSA exceed simply providing vegetables
for its members. HFS believes the farm can encourage personal interactions among
people from the suburbs and the city to reduce the barriers of race, class, and culture.
The process of bringing together so many diverse communities is by no means
smooth or totally successful; it requires time, creativity, and sensitivity to the needs
and strengths of many people. HFS is still learning to use the farm to build a
community. Social events such as potlucks, harvest festivals, group work days,
educational activities, and the Children’s Garden have been some of the first steps.
According to membership surveys, one of the most attractive aspects of the farm for
household members is taking part in a project that benefits low-income people. HFS
works to turn this interest into personal contact, eliminating the stereotypes that
keep such relationships at arm’s length.
From Farm to City
Organizations joining the farm must devise ways to pick up and distribute the share.
This requires staff or volunteer time and a van for transport, both of which might be
scarce. How the tasks of pick-up and distribution are completed are ultimately the
choice and responsibility of individual organizations, but HFS staff offer assistance.
Assistance is aimed at developing self-reliance within member organizations, rather
than creating dependence upon HFS. HFS staff work to identify community
members within the organization who are capable of and enthusiastic about making
the project work. The farm liaison and the program director then work with these
leaders to outfit them with the necessary organizational skills and tools to stay
involved with the farm. For most organizations, farm membership means more than
simply a share of produce.
The produce share and use of the farm’s facilities can improve contact among
constituents and create educational and recreational opportunities. For instance, the
Hispanic Health Council (HHC), a private agency that specializes in health services
for Latinos in the community, has devised a curriculum to use the farm as a site for
teaching the values of sustainable, local agriculture, including environmental
preservation and good nutrition. The HHC materials also include lessons tying
agriculture to Puerto Rican heritage. HHC is in the process of writing a booklet of
traditional Latino recipes modified to use more fresh vegetables and less fat, salt, and
sugar. Teen mothers served by Upper Albany Neighborhood Collaborative, a block
club alliance, use part of their share for classes with Expanded Food and Nutrition
Education Program (EFNEP) of UConn Cooperative Extension to learn food
preparation skills, which are often lost as family and household practices change.
Again, HFS works to develop self-reliance by preparing community leaders to
coordinate such efforts themselves. HFS teaches leaders, for example, to organize a
cooking class or a farm stand rather than doing those tasks for them.
The process of recruiting Hartford organizations as farm members is the initial task.
The goal is to involve low-income Hartford residents in the farm.
26
PROGRAM - 27
The Work Requirement
The farm work requirement can be a sticky issue for CSAs, particularly when they
have a social justice goal. Maintaining two different share prices, one for members
who can afford to pay, and a reduced rate complemented by a work requirement for
other members, can be seen as recreating rather than resolving class divisions.
Holcomb Farm CSA asks for a few hours of farm work from each adult member
from both households and organizations; though this requirement is only loosely
enforced, it is for the most part successful. It can be difficult for Hartford
organizations to get to the farm, but they are usually able to fulfill the work
requirement by taking vans for collective work days. These work days allow
Hartford organization members and household members to meet and work together.
HFS makes the farm work requirement flexible and provides options that allow
elderly people and others who cannot work on the farm to fulfill it. For example,
residents of Horace Bushnell Congregate Home sort donated seeds for their work
requirement.
Facilities and Equipment
The farm covers sixteen acres of land in Granby, CT. The Hartford Food System, in
collaboration with FOHF, leases the land from the Town of Granby. To pay for the
lease, Hartford Food System provides two household shares for every five acres in
cultivation to Granby Social Services clients.
The CSA uses an old tobacco barn (forty feet by one hundred thirty feet) for postharvest handling, storage, and distribution of crops. Farm staff equipped the
distribution area of the barn with produce display racks to help members pick up
their share. Part of the barn is used as office space for the farm manager and
assistant farm manager and for meetings. Two tractors and a flat-bed truck serve
other farm needs.
Holcomb CSA farm storage and distribution center.
27
28 - PROGRAM
The Holcomb Farm CSA Advisory Committee
The CSA Advisory Committee allows Holcomb Farm shareholders to give input on
aspects of farm operation such as recruitment, share price and amount, annual
surveys, and farm activities. Members of the Advisory Committee also take on or
delegate responsibilities such as shareholder recruitment, newsletter writing,
organizing events, and securing in-kind donations. In 1996, members of the
committee worked with HFS’s executive director and program director to set out a
strategic plan for the farm’s long-term goals. The volunteers who serve on the
advisory committee are some of the most active and involved farm members. The
advisory committee channels these members’ energies and ideas into activities
benefiting the farm.
The Hartford Food System strives for a balance of five household and five
organizational members on the Advisory Committee. Recruiting representatives
from organizations has been a challenge, but HFS has succeeded in engaging staff
members and constituents from these organizations in the interests of the farm to
draw them into the Committee.
The Farm to School Program
The Farm to School Program is a prime example of food system development. The
program identifies the lack of local, fresh produce in school lunches and the
generally low consumption rates of fresh produce by young people as important
problems in the community. Hartford Food System then develops responses to the
condition by working to increase the consumption of produce in the schools. The
program provides local growers with an additional market outlet and educates young
students not only to eat healthy, but also to be future consumers of fresh, locally
grown produce.
THE
PARALLEL
INTRODUCTION
OF
NEW
INTO
THE
CAFETERIA
AND
History
FOODS
THE
CLASSROOM
In 1994, Burns Elementary School students received a total of 3.2 ounces of fresh
fruits and vegetables per week in their school lunch.
The Hartford Food System responded to this nutritional inadequacy in school
lunches with a program that increased the amount of fresh, local produce in the
public schools, and encouraged consumption of the produce through a classroom
education program. The Farm Fresh Start program, now called the Farm to School
program, started as a pilot program in one elementary school and one middle school
in 1994 with an eight-week trial period that provided 3,484 pounds of locally-grown
fruits and vegetables. The pilot had measurable success and has been expanded to
five schools as of 1998. Today local growers supply about seventy-five thousand
pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables a year to the five schools.
28
BOOSTS
STUDENTS’
CONSUMPTION
OF
FRUITS
AND
VEGETABLES
BOTH
SCHOOL
AT
IN
AND
HOME.
PROGRAM - 29
Under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), approximately eighty percent of
Hartford Public School students qualify for free or reduced-priced school meals that
supply two-thirds of a student’s daily caloric intake. A recent monitoring of eightyseven New York junior high school students’ eating habits revealed that only three
students ate more than three to five servings of fruits and vegetables per week.
None ate the USDA recommended three to five servings a day. The Farm to School
program responds to these conditions, not only by increasing the supply of fresh,
locally grown fruits and vegetables to the schools, but by encouraging students to eat
the produce offered.
“We hope that kids won’t grow up thinking chickens
have six legs just because that’s how many come in a
package.”
Jim Hightower
In the Cafeteria
The Farm to School program is about creating and fostering connections − farmers
to school cafeterias, food service workers to produce, and produce to students. As
with many HFS programs, the process begins with setting up initial procedures and
connections for the parties involved, and gradually letting these other parties take
over the program. HFS does not act as a permanent hub for these connections, but
rather as a temporary facilitator and trainer.
The process of supplying schools with produce begins with farmers providing the
wholesaler with produce. The wholesaler then cleans, packs, and distributes the
necessary produce for the week’s menu according to the local food service provider’s
specifications, and delivers it once a week to the schools. HFS’s Farm to Family
director assists the school Food Service director with developing menus using the
produce, taking into consideration factors such as children’s food preferences,
storage capabilities, staff’s preparation skills, seasonal availability, and accessibility of
kitchen equipment. Broccoli pizza and roasted squash are good examples of dishes
that get kids to eat the produce. All food is prepared using the least amount of labor
possible. Much of it is served raw, and more fresh fruit than vegetables are served.
The interaction between server and student is one of the most important contacts to
encourage because the program hinges on whether or not the children accept the
food. Our evaluations showed that a student is more likely to eat a food when
encouraged by the server.
A Class Act
Classroom education complements the cafeteria component of the program. In the
classroom students are familiarized with the taste and nutritional value of the
29
30 - PROGRAM
produce served in the cafeteria. The classroom component has been the most visible
success of the Farm to School Project because students have responded with
obvious behavioral and dietary changes.
During the 1996-97 academic year HFS’ food education coordinator taught or
arranged more than one hundred classes, which included food tasting, food
preparation, nutrition education, guest appearances by chefs and farmers, and field
trips to markets and farms. The interactive, hands-on learning is one of the reasons
this program is successful. Students, teachers, and parents alike respond positively
because of the flexibility and variety the food classes lend to the everyday curriculum.
The activities depart from textbook teaching, making the students more receptive,
and encouraging teachers to integrate food into social studies, math, and science
classes.
FOOD
PROVIDES
AN
EXCITING
TEACHING
TOOL
FOR
NUMBER
A
OF
DIFFERENT
SUBJECTS.
Some successful classroom education activities that incorporate other academic
classes include geographically tracing the origins of fruits and vegetables and the
preparation of traditional African-American fare for Black History Month
(February). Other examples include students growing their own tomato plants in
class as a science lesson and creating cookbooks to practice writing skills.
While HFS promotes the development of self-reliance for participating schools,
Hartford Public Schools’ lack of funding has posed a hurdle to the full development
of the program. In nearly all instances, Hartford Food System supplied classes with
the produce, cooking equipment, posters, maps, pens, paper, time and the teacher.
HFS has helped secure funding for kitchen equipment in the schools and has
published a program development guide.
Classroom education student participating in a sensory-based class using broccoli.
30
PROGRAM - 31
City of Hartford Advisory Commission on
Food Policy
Food policy entities bring leaders in the food system and the community together to
share ideas and resources, and to forge common goals for a more integrated,
comprehensive, and well-planned food system.
In addition to Hartford, a small number of cities in North America, including Los
Angeles, Toronto, Knoxville, Tennessee, and St. Paul, Minnesota, have adopted a
municipal food policy. These food policies, intended to improve food security and
alleviate hunger in a city, are typically carried out by a council or commission. In
addition to guiding or advising a municipal government, these councils and
commissions allow for coordination among all agencies concerned with food in a
city. Too often, the collective work of such agencies becomes fragmented as they
lose sight of the bigger picture or simply don’t consider food issues at all.
How Our Commission Came to Be
The series of reactions that culminated in the Commission’s creation began with the
Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project (CCHIP) of 1990. This report
revealed astounding levels of hunger among low-income Hartford children. Thenmayor Carrie Saxon-Perry convened a Task Force on Hunger, which recommended,
among other actions, the creation of a food policy for Hartford. In 1991, the
Hartford City Council passed an ordinance to establish a food policy including an
advisory commission. The Commission, comprised of fifteen appointed volunteer
members, began meeting in 1992.
The Commission’s founding ordinance states Hartford’s food policy:
“To improve the availability of food to persons in need
within the city, there shall be a food policy advisory
commission. The purpose of this policy shall be to
integrate all agencies of the city in a common effort to
improve the availability of safe and nutritious food for
all residents, particularly those in need.”
The Hartford Food System’s Role
The Hartford Food System has played a considerable role in developing, instituting,
and operating the Commission. HFS assisted with the CCHIP study’s policy
recommendations, and Mark Winne, HFS executive director, participated in the
Mayor’s Task Force on Hunger and has been an active Commissioner for the
duration, serving a term as Commission chair. Mark Winne spends a considerable
31
32 - PROGRAM
amount of his time guiding the Commission. HFS also hires and supervises the
Commission’s staff intern and provides supplies and office support for Commission
activities. The staff person is responsible for executing the projects generated by the
Commission.
Commission Powers and Activities
As its name suggests, Hartford’s food policy commission has the power to advise the
City Council, the Mayor, and City Departments on issues of food and hunger. It
may recommend city government actions, or even advocate for issues in state
government, but it does not have statutory authority to direct city action. Its
approval is not required for city resolutions that affect food issues in Hartford.
However, the Commission may act independently to gather and distribute
information, investigate conditions in Hartford, and use recognition (awards) to draw
attention to creative solutions and foster incentives for improvement. Although the
Commission lacks some powers, it encourages food-related organizations to
coordinate their activities. Composed of members appointed by the mayor and city
council, the Commission’s position on food issues carries weight, and its voice has
authority as an advocate for the best possible food system.
Ongoing Projects
The Commission pursues a number of projects each year based on new and ongoing
challenges and research in Hartford, Commissioners’ experience with food security
problems in Hartford, and their awareness of food security problems in other cities.
Many projects are ongoing or periodic, while others examine a current problem and
work toward solving it. The following are a few of the most prominent projects the
Commission has conducted.
•
•
FOOD
COMMISSION
ACTIVITIES
RESULT
BETTER
USE
Supermarket surveys. The Commission decided to conduct regular marketbasket surveys in late 1995 in response to observations and complaints that the
price of the same item varied from store to store. The quarterly surveys compare
the prices of a uniform forty-one item market basket in seven area supermarkets,
and the prices on a similar market basket in smaller independent stores. The
results are disseminated throughout Hartford at libraries, community
organizations, and public transportation sites, as well as through the media. In
1997 market basket price differences averaged fourteen percent, or ten dollars,
indicating that over time shoppers can experience considerable savings by using
lower-priced stores.
OF
Documenting hunger. It is nearly impossible to quantify the degree to which
hunger affects a population. To understand citywide hunger conditions and
provide this information to policy-makers and food advocates, the Commission
compiles and publishes a quarterly report of the best indicators of hunger it can
find. Data about the use of public assistance, emergency meals, and school
meals programs proxy for hunger levels. These reports are released to
government agencies and social welfare advocates.
BENEFITS
32
IN
RESOURCES
AND
AND
A
FUNDS,
STRONG
VOICE
BETTER
FOR
FOOD
ACCESS.
HAS
TO
IT
HELPED
SAVE
PUBLIC
FOR
THOUSANDS,
AND
TO
PREVENT
SUPERMARKET
MONOPOLIES.
PROGRAM - 33
•
Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). This federal program gives
municipalities funding for free summer meals for children under age eighteen.
The food service fills a gap that leaves many children without healthy meals
when school closes. When reports from program users and sponsors raised
Commission concerns about the quality of the meals provided and the way SFSP
was administered in Hartford, the Commission began to monitor the program.
In Summer 1993, a Commission survey found the freshness, variety, and
nutrition of the meals lacking. The Commission was also concerned that an outof-state contractor was providing the meals. The Commission worked with the
SFSP administrators in the Hartford Parks and Recreation Department to
contract with a local vendor, securing both local jobs and fresher, higher-quality
meals. Since then, regular meetings with local program administrators and other
relevant city officials have resulted in successful recommendations including
more service sites and a longer program duration. The Commission also helps to
publicize the program.
•
Golden Muffin Awards. Finding participation in the National School Breakfast
Program (NSBP) in Hartford public schools at only a fraction of eligibility, the
Commission created the Golden Muffin Award as an incentive for schools to
improve participation. The Commission presents tee-shirts and certificates of
merit to the winners in six categories of high or improved participation in NSBP
and serves an enormous golden muffin. The award is an inexpensive and easy
way to encourage schools to take initiative to involve more kids in the breakfast
program. During the first two years of the program, participation increased by
thirty-five percent.
•
Community Food Security Awards. The Commission initiated this award in
1997 to draw attention to creative solutions to food challenges in Hartford and
to observe World Food Day. The Commission gave three awards, choosing one
recipient each from the government, private, and non-profit sectors to
emphasize the need for collaboration between these sectors for comprehensive
food security solutions. The Connecticut Children’s Medical Center worked as a
partner with the Commission to give these awards, donating a dinner reception
and plaques for the winners. In the future, the Commission hopes to collaborate
with the city newspaper to ensure a higher profile for the event and with it the
problems of food insecurity in Hartford.
The Commission also
Hartford. In response
advocated on behalf of
food. These are some
stand.
•
acts as a watchdog for issues affecting food security in
to developments in the food system, the Commission has
Hartford residents, particularly those with limited access to
examples of issues on which the Commission has taken a
Connecticut Food Stamp cut-off waiver. In early 1997 the Commission
successfully urged the Governor of Connecticut to apply for a waiver of benefits
termination for ten thousand Connecticut food stamps recipients.
33
34 - PROGRAM
•
Edward’s - Stop & Shop merger. In 1996, when the Edward’s Supermarket
chain announced a pending merger with the Stop & Shop chain, the Commission
worked with other interests to convince the Connecticut Attorney General to
require divestment of stores to other chains before the merger was allowed. Had
the merger been completed, supermarket competition in Greater Hartford would
have been nearly eliminated.
•
Supermarket cleanliness.
In response to customer complaints, the
Commission urged corporate Stop & Shop headquarters to clean up its Hartford
store.
Commission Members
Nine to ten members of the fifteen-person Commission represent organizations
concerned with food, and five to six members are from the public-at-large. The two
permanent positions on the Commission are the ex-officio members; one represents
the director of the City Department of Health, and the other represents the director
of the Department of Human Services.
The following food-related organizations or interests currently have staff members
who serve on the Commission. No organization has a permanent position, so
representative composition changes through time. The Commissioner’s position in
his or her own organization is in parenthesis.
• The Hartford Food System (executive director)
• Foodshare -- regional Second Harvest Food Bank (president)
• Knox Parks Foundation -- community gardening (director)
• St. Francis Hospital Outpatient Nutrition Services (nutritionist)
• Connecticut Anti-Hunger Coalition (outreach staff)
• Hispanic Health Council (outreach staff)
• Hartford Public Schools Nutrition Education (nutrition consultation service)
• Adams Food Store (manager)
• $hopping Smart -- consumer consulting service (director)
• North Hartford Senior Center (organizer)
• Hartford Health Department (WIC program director)
• Hartford Human Services Department (case worker)
34
PROGRAM - 35
Supermarket flight plagues Hartford.
Northeast Partnership
The Northeast Partnership brings together diverse food security advocates to share
resources, build networks, and plan for the future of the Northeast food system.
History
The Northeast Partnership was created in March 1997 at the New Connections in
the Northeast Food System Conference. The Partnership typifies HFS’s current
direction toward reaching outside the city to build regional and national ties.
Although HFS’s primary focus remains on Hartford, it has come to realize that state,
regional, and national ties are also valuable in developing long-term solutions to food
insecurity, and that its twenty years of community food experience means it has
much to share.
The Partnership evolved from a concept paper, written by Mark Winne, HFS
executive director, and Hugh Joseph, research associate at Tufts School of Nutrition
Science and Policy, that explored the potential benefits of networking organization
representatives of the Northeast food system. These include groups, organizations,
and communities that address food issues ranging from food access for low-income
people to preserving farmland to improving nutrition. This network will provide
information, support, training and technical assistance, and development of joint
projects. Winne and Joseph saw information exchange as the most pressing need
and the area where individual organizations might gain the most.
35
36 - PROGRAM
The New Connections in the Northeast Food System Conference brought together,
for the first time, two hundred people working with food issues in the Northeast
region. Conference attendees made connections across the region, sought valuable
information on program development, and in some cases discovered people working
on similar issues right in their own town. What they also realized, after an intense
break-out session by region, was that each region had a variety of food and
agriculture problems that no single group could solve, and that by banding together
they might be able to strengthen the regional food system. The result was the
Northeast Partnership Listserv, an e-mail bulletin board where one can post
messages to be seen by all subscribers. The listserv has more than three hundred
subscribers who exchange information (see Appendix B).
THE
NORTH-
EAST
PART-
NERSHIP
BRINGS
FOOD
GROUPS
FROM
THE
REGION
TOGETHER
TO
EXCHANGE
INFORM-
The Partnership’s Roles
The Partnership has defined its goals and developed a detailed work plan toward
establishing them. An organizing group, including Tufts University, HFS,
NESAWG, Isles, Inc., New England Small Farm Institute, and Maine Coalition on
Food Security, has proposed an educational program, Project Connect, for Northeast
advocates of sustainable agriculture, food systems, and food security. Project
Connect would develop a working agenda for the region through local meetings
analyzing the food system. It will also devise a common action plan, publish a
concept paper, serve as an information clearinghouse through the listserv, set up a
web site and a database, and provide training and technical assistance.
The purpose of the concept paper is to help the Partnership arrive at a uniform
definition of community food security because the grassroots groups that comprise
the Partnership often interpret the concept differently, given their diverse
experiences. Project Connect will develop collaborations to unite the Northeast
food system and make better use of financial and technical resources. Collaboration
will allow small organizations to gain attention, pool their resources, and refine their
services to better fill gaps in community services.
36
ATION
SKILLS
AND
TO
BENEFIT
EVERYONE.
PERSONNEL - 37
PERSONNEL
Hartford Food System Board of Directors
A Board of Directors oversees the Hartford Food System and bears legal and
financial responsibility for the organization. HFS seeks diverse board members with
varied areas of expertise. Board members are instrumental in conducting Hartford
Food System’s fundraising efforts because of their connections within both the
community at-large and the corporate and business communities of the Hartford
area.
Hartford Food System’s Staff, Duties, and Activities
• Executive Director (full-time): Mark Winne
Duties: Directs and develops Hartford Food System’s projects
Member of City of Hartford Advisory Commission on Food Policy
Member of State of Connecticut Food Policy Council
President of Community Food Security Coalition Board of Directors
Member of Foodshare’s Education and Outreach Committee
Member of the Main Street Market Board of Directors
Activity
Percentage Time Spent
Community Food Security Coalition
35%
Farm to Family (CSA and Farmers’ Markets)
20%
Policy and Training
20%
Administration
10%
Elderly Programs
5%
Economic development
5%
Farm Fresh Start (Farm to School Education Program)
5%
• Farm to Family Program Director (full-time): Elizabeth Wheeler
Duties: CSA management and administration
Hires and supervises program staff
Development and administration of Farm Fresh Start
Activity
Percentage Time Spent
Farm to Family
50%
Farm Fresh Start
50%
37
38 - PERSONNEL
• Bookkeeper, Office Manager, and Grocery Delivery Service Coordinator
(part-time): Vanessa Gruden
Duties: Maintains financial records for organization and programs
Runs Grocery Delivery Program
Prepares grant proposals
Purchases office supplies
Handles miscellaneous administrative duties
Activity
Percentage Time Spent
Administration
66%
Elderly
34%
• Farm Manager (full-time): Michael Raymond
Duties: Oversees crop production and distribution
Supervises interns
Assists with recruiting shareholders
Activity
Percentage Time Spent
Farm to Family
100%
• Assistant Farm Manager (seasonal full-time): Leslie Chaison
Duties: Assists with crop production and distribution
Assists with supervision of interns
Activity
Percentage Time Spent
Farm to Family
100%
Other Staff Positions
• Food Policy Commission staff
• Grocery Delivery Service
intern
Coordinator (when HFS ran the
service itself)
• Farm Liaison VISTA
• Volunteers on an as-needed basis
• Other AmeriCorps*VISTA
members
• Outreach Information Coordinator
(Northeast Partnership)
• Three to five Farm Interns
• Food Education Coordinator
38
PERSONNEL - 39
Farmers' Market Pantry Coupons Program Staff
One staff member at HFS spends a small percentage of his or her time creating and
printing the coupons yearly, shipping them to Foodshare (the regional food bank),
collecting the coupons from the farmers, billing Foodshare, and paying the farmers.
This takes a total of twenty hours per season. Foodshare also has one staff member
who coordinates the counting of the coupons, and arranges for the money to be
transferred to HFS. HFS and Foodshare directors seek funding each year, usually
from private sources.
Main Street Market Staff
The market has one full-time manager who oversees the facilities, day-to-day
operations, and entertainment. He works April through November at a pay rate of
two thousand five hundred dollars per month. The manager reports to the Board of
Directors of the recently incorporated Main Street Market Corporation, which is
comprised of a group of local business owners, non-profit organizations, one Market
vendor, and a City of Hartford representative. It has contracted with the Hartford
Food System to manage finances and provide overall supervision.
• Manager
Duties: Arranges the entertainment
Opening and closing the market (including setting up chairs and
tables)
Collecting rent
Handling complaints
Assisting with promotion of the market.
CSA Staff
• The Hartford Food System’s Farm to Family Program director is responsible for
guiding the farm’s long-term growth. The program director implements the
program and is responsible for all administrative and staff supervision. She is the
point person for the farm manager and assistant farm manager, chairs the
advisory committee, guides the budget and the direction of the farm along with
HFS’s executive director, leads the marketing team, issues public relations efforts,
and initiates new projects such as special group membership, grant-writing, and
fundraising efforts. The CSA project took more than twenty hours per week of
her time during its first year, but decreased to about twenty hours per week as the
project became more established.
• The farm manager is an experienced grower with excellent people skills and the
ability to operate farm equipment. The farm manager plans and executes all
aspects of crop production and harvest, sustains community relations, and leads a
farm crew of assistant manager and interns. She or he works “farm hours”
(sunrise to sunset, Monday through Friday, and Saturday until 2:00 p.m., or as
long as it takes to get things done) from late March to November. The rest of the
39
40 - PERSONNEL
year, the farm manager works thirty hours per week compiling the farm report,
marketing the farm, hiring interns, planning crops, and purchasing equipment.
• The assistant farm manager helps the farm manager and assumes his or her duties
in case of absence. The assistant farm manager is also an experienced grower
with good people skills. He or she works the same hours as the farm manager
during the growing season and is sometimes hired part-time for the winter
depending upon needs such as marketing, equipment-buying, or farm planning.
• Three to five interns assist with the operations of the farm. These interns are
seeking a learning experience in sustainable agriculture and an opportunity to
work with a diverse group of people. They work farm hours throughout the
season, but their periods of employment are often staggered due to fluctuations in
need and intern availability. HFS tries to ensure free housing for interns by either
renting housing or arranging with CSA members to provide a room in their
homes.
• The farm liaison VISTA deals with nearly every aspect of organization
membership. She/he is the primary recruiter of organizations, and is concerned
particularly with helping develop self-reliance among organization members by
identifying strong leaders within those groups. HFS has hired a farm liaison
VISTA for the past two seasons to help recruit organization members and offer
assistance in coordinating transportation and distribution for the share. She or he
also helps organizations take advantage of educational and recreational
opportunities at the farm. This job requires more than forty hours per week.
• From 1995-96, Hartford Food System’s food education coordinator created and
helped implement an agriculture and nutrition education program to be used by
children and adults at the farm. The food education coordinator’s curriculum
project took between twenty and fifty hours per week to develop and implement.
Though this was a valuable staff position, outside food education agencies such as
EFNEP have largely assumed its functions (see Glossary).
• Other HFS staff members also contribute to marketing, bookkeeping, mailings,
and other administrative tasks for the farm.
Farm to School Program Staff
Initiating the project requires a full-time food education coordinator, whose job
duties include recruiting and training teachers, learning how they run their
classrooms, creating new curricula, helping teachers acquire produce and other
supplies, familiarizing teachers with new curricula or adapting existing ones,
recruiting chefs and farmers for classroom education, teaching the students, and
maintaining contact with the farmers.
Hartford Food Commission Staff and Members
The idea of convening a food policy commission is based on the community food
security principle of comprehensiveness in all things. Therefore, it is critical that
Commission members represent the breadth of the food system, including non-
40
PERSONNEL - 41
profits, for-profits, the public sector, and the gamut of players from community
gardens to food banking and nutrition services.
• In Hartford, most new Food Commission members are recruited by incumbent
Commissioners and are officially nominated by motion of the Commission. The
City Council and the Mayor appoint nominees to the Commission for staggered
three-year terms. Members may be reappointed, and in fact six current
Commissioners have served since its initiation.
• Members of the Commission give three to six hours per month to the
Commission, attending monthly meetings and giving time to conduct surveys,
meet with city officials, prepare written material, and participate in
subcommittees. Commissioners help conduct surveys, gather and distribute
information, and write proposals and reports on a volunteer basis. Their role is
largely about lending expertise and different perspectives to the Commission.
• A hired staff person executes most of the Commission’s projects, working twenty
to thirty hours or more per week according to the Commission’s current project
load.
• Mark Winne of Hartford Food System gives ten hours per month supervising the
staff and overseeing many of the Commission’s projects.
• The
Commission chair leads meetings, signs major correspondence,
communicates with the media and government officials, and works with the staff
person on most projects. She gives two to four hours of her time each week to
Commission duties.
The Commission chairperson is an experienced
commissioner who also is nominated by a vote of the Commission and approved
by City Council and the Mayor. She or he serves two years.
• The staff intern position may be part-time or full-time, commensurate with the
amount and type of work the Commission seeks to do. The intern works out of
the Hartford Food System’s office (which is also the location to which all
correspondence is sent) since the Commission itself does not have an office.
Northeast Partnership Staff
There is one half-time staff person, an outreach coordinator, who earns seven
hundred dollars per month. Her duties are still being developed, but currently
consist of managing the listserv and creating the database. Additional staff time
comes from the directors of the participating organizations, whose support lends the
Partnership credibility and administrative strength.
41
42 - PERSONNEL
42
FINANCES - 43
FINANCES
The Fiscal Year 1999 budget for Hartford Food System is made available in full on the
following two pages. Here, it is appropriate to take a more in-depth look at the financial
information for Project Farm Fresh Start, the City of Hartford Advisory Commission on
Food Policy Project, and Holcolmb Community Supported Agriculture Farm.
Project Farm Fresh Start
The Farm to Family Program director secured funds and handled the grant reporting.
Funding came from two SARE/ACE grants totaling $63,000 and matching funds of $43,650
for the three-year pilot term.
City of Hartford Advisory Commission on Food Policy Project
Each year, the Hartford City manager allocates seven thousand five hundred dollars from
the City Department of Health budget to fund the Commission. The Hartford Food System
provides an additional five thousand dollars in support staff services, office supplies, and
printing costs for the Commission. Proportions of active Commissioners’ salaries,
particularly Mark Winne’s and the Chairperson’s, are difficult to estimate but should be
considered part of the budget. Additional private groups, such as Connecticut Natural Gas,
which printed the 1997 Annual Report, and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, which
funded the Community Food Security Awards, provide in-kind support to the Commission.
Commissioner salaries and private support of the Commission total fifteen thousand dollars,
for a total expenditure of twenty-five thousand dollars per year.
• Staff (intern) salary
$9,000
• Printing Costs (in-kind)
$3,000
• Mailings
$1,500
• Supplies
$1,000
• Commissioner time (in-kind)
$10,000
• Events and Catering
$500
Total
$25,000
43
44 - FINANCES
44
FINANCES - 45
45
46 - FINANCES
CSA Finances
The costs of running the CSA include one-time capital costs such as tractors, barn
improvements, and an irrigation system, as well as the on-going operating costs such as
labor, seeds, and growing supplies. The operating budget does not include administrative
and education costs, which are borne by HFS. Since 1994, member fees have been an
increasing portion of the CSA’s operating costs.
Member fees, donations, and grants obtained by HFS supported the CSA’s 1998 operating
budget of $94,568. In 1998, income from households and organizations provided a total of
$78,428, or eighty-three percent of the operating budget (an increase from thirty percent in
1995). This amount includes donations of $1,080 to support low-income memberships.
The Hartford Food System supplemented the CSA income with approximately $56,000 in
salaries, overhead, and benefits. The budget does not include the additional $16,000 in
services, supplies, equipment, and technical advice donated by local farmers, businesses, and
other community members.
HFS’s commitment to serve low-income families in Hartford will continue to influence the
price of a share at the Holcomb Farm CSA. Household and organization share prices will be
gradually increased to reflect the actual cost of growing food, while HFS will continue to
raise funds to support the participation of low-income people. HFS anticipates providing a
decreasing share of the CSA’s capital and operating expenses. The project’s financial goal is
to break even on its operating costs by the year 2000.
46
RESULTS AND EVALUATION - 47
RESULTS AND EVALUATION
Farmers' Markets Evaluation
Farmers’ markets can be evaluated based on revenue, Farmers’ Market Nutrition
Program coupon sales, food stamp sales, and price comparisons between farmers’
markets and grocery stores. Appendix E contains a sample survey that can be used
to gauge customer use and satisfaction with the farmers’ markets.
Farmers' Market Nutrition Program Evaluation
HFS’s pantry coupons have had a sixty percent redemption rate over the duration of
the program. In 1997, the redemption rate peaked at seventy percent.
Staff members record the numbers of the checks distributed to particular WIC
offices or senior sites to allow for monitoring. Department of Agriculture staff
process the data from collected coupons to monitor which WIC office issued the
coupons and at which markets they were used.
Both FMNP coupon recipients and farmers are surveyed at the close of the farm
market season to gauge the effectiveness of the program. Recipients are asked
whether the program increased their fresh produce consumption, and farmers are
asked about the effect of the program on business at their stand. Sample surveys can
be found in Appendix A. In 1995, seventy-five percent of Connecticut WIC clients
surveyed stated that the coupons encouraged them to eat more fresh fruits and
vegetables. Forty-two percent of clients had never before shopped at a farmers’
market, and seventy-seven percent said they would go back to buy more produce
even after they had used all of their coupons. These results show that FMNP
introduces participants to better eating habits and fosters permanent connections
with local farmers. Also in 1995, eighty-six percent of participating farmers in the
state reported increased sales at the market as a result of the program, and fifty-three
percent increased production to meet demand from the program.
The following statistics are for the participation in the Connecticut Farmers’ Market
Nutrition program in 1997:
• Participating farmers: 134
• Recipients:
WIC - 38,481
Senior - 5,543
Total - 44,024
• Checks issued:
WIC - 192,405
Senior - 27,715
Total - 220,120
• Total dollar value of checks redeemed: $283,048
• Total redemption rate: 64%
47
SURVEYS
THAT
SHOW
WHEN
CLIENTS
USE
FMNP
COUPONS,
THEY
THEIR
ALTER
EATING
HABITS
TO
CONSUME
MORE
FRESH
PRODUCE.
48 - RESULTS AND EVALUATION
Main Street Market Evaluation
It is difficult to measure the Main Street Market’s benefits for area farmers and
Hartford residents. One viable measure is the economic benefits to farmers.
Vendors and farmers are reluctant to disclose profit information, so total revenue is
not known. Estimated coupon sales for farmers is at about seventy-five thousand
dollars plus five thousand dollars in food stamps. This estimate is about one-third of
the total earnings for the seven participating farmers in 1997.
Community support and improved access to food are integral benefits that are more
difficult to measure. A 1997 study conducted by a private consulting firm used the
Main Street Market to evaluate the viability of a larger, more permanent public
market in Hartford. Customers overwhelmingly expressed support for the Market,
particularly for its ambiance, produce, and entertainment.
Unfortunately, the Main Street Market will be losing its site in 1998 because the
owner has decided to develop the property for a hotel or conference center.
However, the Market will be re-established at the Old State House, its original site,
and, coincidentally, the site of the first documented farmers’ market in Hartford in
1634.
Evaluating the Farm’s Progress
There are a number of ways to evaluate the farm’s progress, so it is important to
choose the most cogent indicators. The total pounds of food produced and a price
comparison of the share versus supermarket produce offer one side of the story.
Statistics for Holcomb Farm Community Supported Agriculture’s 1997 Farm Season
(pounds do not include pick-your-own harvests):
• Number of organization shares sold: 8.5
• Share price: $1,000
• Total pounds distributed to organizations: 58,514
• Pounds in one organization share over the season: 6,884
• Estimated number of Hartford residents who received food through organization
shares: 2,500
• Number of household shares sold: 147
• Price of share: $250
• Total pounds distributed to households: 58,506
• Pounds in one household share over the season: 398
• Types of vegetable and fruit crops: 36
• Types of herbs and flowers: 14
48
RESULTS AND EVALUATION - 49
• Market basket comparison for a household share at supermarkets (not including
pick-your-owns): natural foods supermarket (mostly organic): $535, versus
conventional chain supermarket: $337
Shareholder surveys examine the larger effects of the farm on the community.
Surveys of both organization staff and household members provide some of the best
feedback about the success of the farm, in terms of the farm as a source of both
food and improved community links. The survey results offer suggestions for future
directions for the farm and ways to better serve members. Highlights of the 1998
household survey (see Appendix F) include:
• Most CSA members heard about the CSA from a friend who was already a
member. Newspaper mentions were second to word-of mouth in attracting new
members to the CSA.
• Members responded that freshness of produce was the most important aspect of
the CSA. Organic production methods were also very important.
• Vegetables most requested for 1999 include staple crops such as potatoes,
broccoli, lettuce, squash, beans, and peas.
• Many members were overwhelmed by the quantity and variety of greens provided
and asked for less in 1999.
Farm to School Program Evaluation
Pre- and post-interviews with the students and teachers’ daily observations of the
students are effective evaluative tools for the program. Food service staff members
provide quantitative data for produce use and consumption.
Teachers report a noticeable difference among the students’ tastes as the classes
progress. Students are exposed to myriad fruits and vegetables and take the
experience away from the classroom into the supermarket with their parents.
Something magical happens when a child sees his or her food travel from farm to
plate. They form a relationship with the food and the process, which encourages
them to at least try the food.
In the cafeteria the students are more receptive to trying new foods that they have
seen in the classroom or ones suggested by the server. The power of suggestion is
strong among elementary and middle school children, but not among older students.
Junior high students start to form firm opinions about nutrition and pay little
attention to promotional materials or prompting from adults. A long-term hope of
this program is to make today’s children tomorrow’s consumer of healthy, locally
grown produce.
Northeast Partnership Evaluation
There has not yet been a formal evaluation of the Partnership, other than to count
the number of participants interacting on the listserv, numbering well over one
thousand.
49
50 - RESULTS AND EVALUATION
50
REPLICATION - 51
REPLICATION GUIDE
Steps to Implementing Local Food System
Projects
The development of community food systems does not necessarily begin with
programs. The idea of community food security is based on the interaction of
multiple players and the incorporation of multiple perspectives. The creation of
programs should only follow the development of collaborations with already-existing
players in the food system and related areas and an assessment of gaps and resources
in the food system.
Our guidelines for conducting an assessment are simply guidelines. Because food
system components and factors vary from place to place, your own experiences,
resources, and community will largely determine the direction of your assessment.
Developing Collaborations
Who are the players in your food system, and what are their roles? No individual or
organization knows all there is to know about the food system. There are other
people and groups in the community on whose strengths and knowledge you can −
and should − draw. Collaborations have many benefits, including the dynamic
created when community members come together. Some other benefits include
more ideas, more workers, and a larger pool of resources. Furthermore, these links
form the basis of food system development.
We have divided the list of collaborators into inner and outer webs to prioritize
certain potential collaborators as more central to your work. The division is based
on broad generalizations, so in some communities players we have placed in the
outer web may be more important than inner web players. Build on our suggestions
with a sensitivity to how your own community works. Inner web players are likely to
be crucial in early stages of food system development, while outer web collaborations
will become helpful later. To draw together food system players begin contacting
leaders and service providers in the inner web. During your initial contact with
members of the inner web, your goals should be to gain information about the
organizations, discuss programs with directors, and schedule a meeting with other
collaborators. Members of the outer web should be contacted and invited to
meetings as well, but their primary role is likely to come into play with program
development rather than needs assessment.
51
52 - REPLICATION
THE INNER WEB:
•
Community gardens
•
Clean water and air groups
•
Farmers
•
Green party
•
Food banks, food pantries, soup
kitchens, and shelters
•
Land preservation
Anti-hunger groups
•
•
Supermarket chains
Community health organizations
•
•
Business executives
Nutritionists and dietitians
•
•
Community
Corporations
•
Social service agencies
•
Cooperative extension
•
Neighborhood organizations
•
•
The community at-large
Relevant departments of colleges and
universities
•
City/town council
•
Public school administrators
Development
Departments of Agriculture, Public
Health, Human Services
•
THE OUTER WEB:
•
Churches
•
Food cooperatives
•
Senior centers
•
Farm Bureau
•
Consumer groups and advocates
•
Tenants’ unions
•
Hospitals
•
Buying clubs
•
Clinics
•
Family centers
•
Chamber of Commerce
•
Employment agencies
•
Local food processors
•
Small business people
•
Culinary arts education
•
Congregate homes
•
Restaurants
•
Community action groups
•
Chef’s associations
•
United Way
Conducting a Needs Assessment
What do members of the community − service providers and low-income people
alike − see as the primary food challenges in the local food system? Begin examining
your community’s needs through the formation of a loose collaboration, or network,
in which players are able to communicate their perceptions about gaps and strengths
in the food system. Try to meet with all members of the inner and outer webs to
become familiar with the breadth of your food system and the perspectives of its
52
REPLICATION - 53
players. Since the collaborative process ought to be give-and-take, it is also a good
idea to attend regular meetings of your collaborators’ organizations.
Meetings
•
Meet with network members and break into subcommittees if the need
arises.
•
The goals of the meeting are to identify community food resources,
identify gaps in the food system, and establish a baseline knowledge about
your food system.
•
These goals can be reached by learning about your collaborators’ programs,
discussing problems with their programs, asking about their other
collaborations, and making observations about the community’s food
systems.
While you are meeting with collaborators, it is also important to remember those you
will be serving, the low-income population. While we often think of low-income
communities as having few assets and little to offer, this is not true. It is important
to include members of these communities in a meaningful and non-threatening
manner. We recommend focus groups because of their informality and because they
provide an environment in which people will most likely share their experiences (see
Appendix C).
More Needs Assessments
There are many ways of conducting a needs assessment. Some will yield more
quantitative, statistical results, while others will paint an overall picture of the food
system. The following is a list of additional options you might consider as you
examine your local food system. The options you choose will depend on your
resources, particularly time and staff, and your goals in assessing the food system. If
you want a picture of the food system, meetings and small surveys are sufficient. If
you want scientific data about the food system we suggest a household survey.
Option
Positive
Negative
Multiple Meetings with
Initial Collaborators
In-depth
Time intensive
Builds stronger collaborations
More minds, more ideas
May lead to permanent coalitions
53
54 - REPLICATION
Option
Positive
Negative
Informal Surveys
(e.g. Transportation;
see Appendix D)
Good for single topic
Doesn’t produce
scientific results Survey;
Works best at mid-point of
needs assessment
Length of survey
should be kept to five
minutes per person
Targeted toward specific
groups
Time-consuming
Provides illuminating
anecdotes
Household Survey
(e.g. Seeds of Change;
see Appendix F)
Scientific results
Huge time investment
Comprehensive
Requires well-trained
staff to conduct
interviews
Surveying by telephone
excludes the poorest
low-income people
Indicators
To what extent do poverty, hunger, malnutrition and loss of agriculture affect the
community? In lieu of or in addition to an in-depth household survey, you can find
statistical or descriptive indicators of conditions in your community through census
data, other government records, and research from universities, hospitals, and other
institutions. These indicators will assist you in developing a comprehensive picture
of the food system.
Economic and poverty indicators and other demographic factors:
•
Household/per capita income, poverty levels by segment − elderly,
children, women, etc.
•
Unemployment, welfare, other social support − temporary aid to needy
families, general assistance, Jobs First, etc.
•
Vehicle ownership, telephone ownership, housing
•
Education achievement levels, e.g. high school graduation rate, literacy rate
•
Cultural/ethnic/religious constituencies or make-up of community
•
Language and cultural barriers to food access, employment, etc.
•
Family structure, e.g. single mothers as heads of household
54
REPLICATION - 55
•
Types of employment available.
Participation in emergency and government food assistance:
• Meals served at food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters
•
Participation in national school lunch and breakfast programs, summer
food service programs, day care feeding sites
•
Food stamps, WIC, adult care and elderly nutrition programs.
Individual diet-related health problems and risks:
• Diet-related diseases and risk
•
Infant mortality rates, growth retardation, childhood obesity, breastfeeding;
contact the Food Research and Action Center at (202) 986-2200 to find the
Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project nearest you (see
Resources)
•
Overall quality of diet − fat, fiber, fruit, and vegetable intake.
Status of local and regional agriculture and food supply:
• Acreage of farmland and proximity to cities
•
Types of crops grown and total value
•
Amount of regional/state food supply that is imported (a difficult number
to find in research, but estimates are often available).
Resources and Assets
What food, nutrition, poverty, and agriculture resources and programs already exist
in the community? As you develop collaborations some of your community’s
resources will become obvious in the array of organizations and programs with
which you come in contact. The following list of possible assets will help you
complete the picture of your food system. As you begin to implement programs,
you can use the list to tap into resources in your community. Review the list and
identify what resources exist in your community. Bear in mind that this list is
comprehensive, so do not be daunted by its length. You might already have
considerable information about your community, in which case your resources
assessment will be primarily a matter of bringing this information together.
Food, nutrition, and environment-related projects and agencies:
• Federal:
US Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection
Agency, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services,
Community Development Block Grants, etc.
•
State-funded: agriculture, environment; state food assistance programs
•
Foundation or non-profit-supported projects, coalition efforts
Hunger-related services and outreach:
• Food assistance referral services/hotlines (e.g., United Way Infoline)
55
56 - REPLICATION
•
Employment and training linkages.
Infrastructure and transportation:
•
Access to food shopping − groceries, supermarkets
•
Public transportation system, road systems, parking
•
Food transportation systems and other services, e.g., Dial-A-Ride.
Food retail, wholesale, and other sources:
• Supermarkets and other groceries stores, mom and pop stores,
convenience stores, specialty and ethnic products
•
Wholesale cooperatives and distributors
•
Food co-ops, buying clubs, barter systems, SHARE/Serve, Dollar-A-Bag
•
Restaurants − fast food, other chains, specialty, and ethnic.
Local/regional agriculture links to the community:
• Wholesale to and use by restaurants, institutions, co-ops, and retail stores
•
Farm donations, gleaning, farm programs serving low-income people.
Community food production:
• Community gardens, home gardens, permaculture programs, land
availability (vacant land, land practices, and zoning)
•
Farms or other institutional gardens, greenhouses, or farms associated with
schools, hospitals, prisons, etc.
•
Community food processing facilities − canning, drying, milling, etc.
Labor, business, and economic:
•
Food sector unions and labor issues − wages, working conditions
•
Credit and loan programs for businesses in the food sector
•
Food business initiatives, job training, technical assistance.
Food system-related environment and ecology:
• Soil quality for local food production
•
Watershed issues, water quality, availability, conservation
•
Food processing, food waste, industrial disposal, municipal programs
•
Home and industrial recycling programs and participation, composting
centers, home composting, soil management.
Media:
• Small community newspapers, community access television and radio,
institutional publications and newsletters, columns in major newspapers
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REPLICATION - 57
•
Food advertising − types of messages, potential support, resources.
Community health and nutrition:
• Community-based RD’s and nutritionists, nutrition and weight-control
counseling
•
Health fairs and related events
•
Services for special populations, including elderly, homeless, disabled,
homebound, infants and children, young mothers, AIDS/HIV.
Other community resources:
• Sources of expertise (e.g. universities)
•
Community funding sources
•
Volunteer services and programs (e.g. AmeriCorps*VISTA, Jesuit
Volunteer Corps, KAIRO, United Way)
•
Events and festivals (e.g., Earth Day, Puerto Rican Heritage Day)
•
Community and neighborhood leaders, church leaders.
Policy:
• Local, state, and federal; public and non-public policy, non-profit advocacy,
neighborhood associations, labor, business
•
Urban and rural community development, business development,
infrastructure
•
Welfare and social services
•
Nutrition and public health
•
Environment, open space, urban/regional planning, waste management
•
Hearings, meetings, policy councils and initiatives, legislative initiatives.
Creating a Farmers’ Market and a Public
Main Street Market
There are ample resources available to assist you in these endeavors, which may form
the basis of many other food system projects. Contact Hartford Food System to
help you get in touch with the right materials that you will need to start your own
markets.
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58 - REPLICATION
Adding a Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition
Program
Thirty states and four tribal nations already have Farmers’ Market Nutrition
Programs for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clients. If there is no WICFMNP in your state and you would like to start one, extensive information is
available from Public Voice, the non-profit agency that staffs NAFMNP. We will
not discuss WIC-FMNP implementation here; we recommend that you contact
Public Voice (see Resources) for guidance in beginning WIC-FMNP in your state.
Since few states currently extend FMNP to seniors, we will focus here on how to
begin a coupon program for seniors that can be linked to your state FMNP agency.
If your state has no FMNP, we recommend going through federal channels to begin
a program for WIC clients before starting a senior program. Privately funded
coupon programs for seniors are possible, but we suggest going through FMNP
procedures.
HFS’s model for Senior-FMNP implementation was successful and has been tested
in other states.
•
A non-profit agency may begin with a small pilot program serving several
sites (congregate meals sites and housing projects for low-income seniors)
in one city or a few towns.
•
To begin these small projects, initial funding typically comes from private
sources. HFS secured ten thousand dollars from a local insurance
corporation. Another idea is to build ties with your Area Agency on Aging.
Every state has one or more Area Agencies on Aging which serve as
conduits for federal funding for the elderly.
•
After the first year of the pilot, groups typically expand the project over the
next one to two years to include more cities and towns, and subsequently
enlist support from the state FMNP administering agency.
•
As mentioned earlier, under federal FMNP policy states are required to
supply matching funds for thirty percent of their own FMNP. State
funding of Senior-FMNP can be counted toward that match.
Start-up Statistics for Connecticut’s Senior-FMNP Pilot (1989)
•
•
Targeted Hartford agencies:
fourteen congregate meals sites;
twelve low-income housing sites for
seniors
•
Total amount donated: ten
thousand dollars for coupons; five
thousand pieces of promotional
literature
58
Seniors eligible: two thousand
•
Seniors participating: 1,271
•
Coupons per person: ten
dollars per season in two
dollar vouchers
•
Redemption rate: seventy-five
percent
REPLICATION - 59
•
Total dollar value of coupons
redeemed: $9,538
⎝ Operational Process
The Senior-FMNP should operate much like WIC-FMNP.
Coupons or vouchers
• Design a coupon similar to WIC vouchers. The coupon may be in the
form of a check made out to “Certified Farmers’ Market Vendor” for two
dollars. We recommend bank checks because HFS has had more success
with them. If using a coupon, it should be colorful and include the amount
of the coupon, for whom it is intended, and who may redeem it. Encoding
the coupons prevents abuse of the program through coupon duplication;
using checks obviously averts this altogether.
•
Try to get printing costs for the coupons donated, or enlist services from
an area bank for check processing.
Distribution
• During the pilot year, when the participating sites are few and local, staff
from your own organization can deliver coupons to each site. HFS had
twenty-six sites within Hartford for the first year. As you add more cities
to the program, enlist senior agencies or other non-profits in each
participating city to coordinate training of site staff and distribution of
coupons to those staff.
•
Develop a distribution network and system for the senior program to serve
functions analogous to WIC staff within WIC-FMNP. Staff at housing or
meal sites can distribute coupons to participants over one to two days, and
staff can record the names of seniors who take the coupons at that site.
Redemption and payment
• Allow seniors to send substitutes to use the coupons if they have mobility
difficulties.
•
If coupons are bank checks, farmers may simply stamp them with their
certification number and cash them at their bank. If you use coupons,
organization staff must collect coupons and reimburse farmers.
•
As the program becomes established within state agencies, the
administrative processes associated with the Senior-FMNP program,
including funding, redemption, payment of farmers, and tracking, should
be integrated with WIC-FMNP administration. The distribution system
developed during the pilot can remain.
⎝ Expanding the Program to New Sites
After a successful pilot project and the procurement of additional funding, select five
to twelve new cities and towns to participate based on:
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60 - REPLICATION
•
A significant population of low-income elderly living in subsidized housing
or receiving congregate meals
•
Established, accessible farmers’ markets in the city or town
•
The willingness of staff at programs or local volunteers to administer the
program.
⎝ Promoting Coupon Use
•
Develop brochures and posters explaining the program and listing farmers’
market sites and operation times. Brochures should include simple recipes
and produce storage tips.
•
Use large, bold type for seniors; make bilingual materials if applicable.
•
Hang posters at sites a few weeks in advance of the coupon distribution.
•
Have newsletters at the sites advertise the program in advance.
•
Distribute brochures with the coupons.
⎝ Evaluation
•
Compare the price of market produce with prices at supermarkets to see if
clients are getting comparable prices for their coupons.
•
Track coupon use (as in WIC-FMNP) with coded coupons.
•
Conduct post-season surveys of both clients and farmers, as in WICFMNP (see Appendix A).
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REPLICATION - 61
Establishing a Farmers’ Market Pantry
Coupons Program
This coupon program is fairly easy to initiate and touches a constituency that is often
overlooked when it comes to being supplied with fresh food.
⎝ Building Collaborations
Collaborating with your local emergency food provider is the key to making this
program work because that link connects you directly with the constituency you wish
to serve. Tap into the relationship with this service provider you will have
established in your needs and resource assessments. The Hartford Food System
works with Foodshare, a regional Second Harvest food bank. You and your partners
can divide the following list of tasks.
⎝ Administering the Program
•
Creating the coupon (HFS task). The coupons should contain the dollar
value, list time, date, location of the markets, what can be purchased (only
locally grown produce), who can accept them, and your organization’s
name and telephone number. They also should be numbered for tracking.
•
Delivering the coupon (HFS task). The coupons are delivered to the
emergency food source at the beginning of the market season and then
distributed by the service provider to small emergency food providers:
soup kitchens, shelters, food banks, and pantries.
•
Distribution (Foodshare task). Delivery sites become accessible and
identifiable through the collaboration with emergency food providers.
Coupons are dropped off with food bank deliveries to the managers of
these sites and distributed to patrons at the beginning of the market season.
•
Alert farmers (HFS task). As a courtesy, send a letter to farmers
announcing the distribution of the coupons. The letter should tell them
how many dollars in coupons are in circulation, when they were dispersed,
who the recipients are, who can accept the coupons and that they can only
be used for local produce grown by the farmer.
•
Collecting the coupons (HFS task). The circulated coupons are collected
from farmers twice a season. Keep track of the farmers and number of
coupons each gives you by careful labeling.
•
Reimbursing the farmers (HFS/Foodshare task). Once coupons are
collected, recount them. Draw up an invoice containing the farmer’s name,
address, telephone number, selling site, how many coupons he or she had,
and the total dollar value of the coupons. This should go to your partner
organization for approval. Write and deliver or mail checks to each farmer.
There should be about a one week turn-over. HFS draws up the invoice,
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62 - REPLICATION
writes the checks, and delivers them. Foodshare counts the coupons and
transfers its share of the funds to HFS.
⎝ Stumbling Blocks
As we don’t live in a perfect society, there is an occasional problem or two. Here are
some HFS encountered:
•
There is no real way to stop food pantry patrons from selling coupons, and
it is difficult to detect.
•
The pantries’ difficulty of obtaining fresh produce have led some to keep
the coupons themselves and purchase several hundred dollars worth of
fresh produce at once. This can be prevented by asking farmers not to
accept large amounts of coupons at once, and by notifying farmers of the
amount each patron receives.
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REPLICATION - 63
⎝ Evaluation
•
Redemption rate: High redemption rates, as always, are a quantitative sign
of success.
•
Tracking: Tracking the coupon from start to finish is probably a more
revealing method of evaluation than redemption rate. When distributing
the coupons record the sets of numbers given to each source. The
numbers on returned coupons will tell you which emergency food source
the coupon came from, which markets are frequently used and which
providers distribute coupons regularly.
Implementing a Grocery Delivery Service
It has been difficult for HFS as a small non-profit with multiple projects to operate
this program; however, many seniors would be at a loss for groceries if it didn’t exist.
⎝ Finding a Delivery Service
HFS’s experience shows that locating and contracting with a cost-effective delivery
service that can provide groceries at reasonable prices is the biggest challenge for the
program. We suggest looking at the following possibilities:
•
Small non-chain supermarkets (prices for groceries may be higher and
range of items available may be narrower)
•
Chain supermarkets that still offer delivery (there are very few, if any)
•
Delivery services, like HFS’s contractor, Shop-In, whose usual client base
may be more affluent shoppers who don’t have time to go to the store
(delivery charges for these types of services may be high)
To give an example of how this process works:
•
A new client calls HFS to sign up to receive funding for the delivery
service. HFS’s bookkeeper interviews the new client to obtain data
required by our funding agency.
•
•
HFS’s bookkeeper calls Shop-In to register the new client.
•
Shop-In arranges an appointment with the new client to explain the
service and give them a catalogue from which to order.
•
Client calls toll-free number to place order for any of three weekly
delivery days.
•
Shop-In charges a fifteen-dollar fee to HFS for each delivery.
In some areas, you might find services that offer in-home help with chores
and other household needs, but these are usually extremely expensive.
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64 - REPLICATION
⎝ In-House Delivery Service
HFS’s staff operated the delivery service for its first eight years, but HFS switched to
a contractor in 1996 as this system was not cost-effective and lacked flexibility for
clients in terms of item availability and ordering and delivery times. Though this
system was not ideal for HFS, we will describe it here.
•
Under this system, clients called HFS and placed orders with the delivery
service coordinator on specified days at specified times.
•
Volunteers or the service coordinator bought the groceries at one
supermarket, which agreed to mark prices down slightly to help HFS cover
delivery costs.
•
The service coordinator used the HFS van (now defunct) to deliver the
groceries on designated days. Clients reimbursed HFS for the full price of
the groceries so HFS could keep the markdown.
⎝ Promoting the Service
•
Create a pamphlet detailing the program.
•
Talk with counselors and other staff at the following types of agencies and
have them distribute the pamphlets to their clients at:
•
Senior centers
•
Town elderly services
•
Social service agencies
•
•
Churches
Agencies and advocates
for the disabled
(depending on funding
sources)
Visiting Nurses’
Associations
Encourage clients to tell friends and neighbors about the service. Give
members additional brochures to hand out.
•
•
⎝ Evaluation
•
Compare a sample of prices from the delivery service used with prices at a
typical chain supermarket.
•
Calculate the aggregate amount of money clients saved by multiplying the
charge per delivery by the number of deliveries per year. Calculate average
per client savings by dividing this by the total clients served that year.
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REPLICATION - 65
Starting a Community Supported Agriculture
Farm
The aspects of operating a Community Supported Agriculture farm that do not relate
to targeting low-income and/or urban populations will be discussed only briefly in
this section. Do not interpret our emphasis on organization members to mean that
household members are less important in this type of CSA. They are integral
members of the farm community, but any good guide to running a typical CSA will
prepare you for household membership issues. We strongly recommend connecting
with experienced CSA farmers, attending CSA workshops and conferences, and
acquiring a good general CSA guide book (see Resources) for comprehensive
information on the following aspects of running a CSA:
•
Obtaining land
•
Facilities and equipment needs
•
Growing
•
•
Organic practices
Marketing to households and
individuals
•
Keeping a harvest log
•
General produce distribution
methods
•
Hiring interns and the intern wage
arrangement
•
Budgeting and accounting
⎝ Defining the Community You Wish to Serve
While individuals as well as organizations such as schools, residential programs for
the disabled, and churches may purchase household shares, HFS has set guidelines
for who is eligible to purchase a subsidized organization membership. Based on its
mission to improve access to affordable, nutritious food for low-income and elderly
Hartford residents, HFS only allows organizations that serve these populations to
purchase the less expensive bulk-sized share. In beginning your CSA, it is important
to define the community your CSA is to serve. This definition in turn will help
determine farm location, marketing strategies, funding sources, and, of course, who
will join.
⎝ Securing Land
HFS was fortunate to arrange a land-use agreement with a non-profit organization
that controls town-owned land and seeks involvement in activities beneficial to lowincome communities. Such opportunities are certainly rare, so be ready for them,
and most of all be creative. You might start by approaching organizations such as:
•
Existing CSAs in your region (a list of known CSAs is available from the
CSA Farm Network (see Resources))
•
Local land trusts and Equity Trust (see Resources)
•
Town or state governments that control public lands.
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66 - REPLICATION
•
Some issues to keep in mind when seeking land for the CSA, in addition to
those directly related to growing, include:
•
Proximity of the land to your members’ communities and your
organization’s location
•
Potential for expansion
•
Past agricultural use (e.g., have pesticides been used on the land? Is the soil
healthy?)
•
Existing barns and other facilities on the land that could be used for your
purposes
•
Support within the surrounding community for the proposed CSA and
involvement of low-income people.
When you finally do break ground, make an event of it! Use the start of your first
season to draw attention to the farm and bring together your farm community. HFS
orchestrated a groundbreaking ceremony that was attended by the mayor of Hartford
and Granby selectpersons.
⎝ Setting Share Price and Size
The price of both types of shares should be determined prior to marketing. Prices
for household shares at most CSAs range from three hundred to six hundred dollars,
determined by dividing the budget by the target number of members. The process
of setting share price is different for HFS’s CSA because grants and donations
subsidize share price. HFS’s organization shares contain sixteen times the amount of
food in a household share, and cost around one thousand dollars. With the cost of
our household share at three hundred dollars, organizations get about four to five
times the value. A number of other processes and decisions work in tandem to
determine share price:
•
Setting the season’s budget
•
Setting a production goal, based largely on acreage and soil productivity
•
Setting household and organization membership goals (see HFS’s start-up
statistics above)
•
Setting share size, with sensitivity to people’s consumption limits and
differences in the amount of vegetables different people eat, as well as
factoring in potential surpluses or crop failures
•
Realistically estimating the contribution of grants and funds from your
organization.
⎝ Marketing the Farm to Organizations
In terms of time, marketing (also called membership recruitment) is the largest
administrative task of the farm project. Both households and organizations must be
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REPLICATION - 67
recruited. Many marketing efforts, including fliers, slide shows, displays at
community festivals, newspaper articles, and advertisements for print, radio, and
community television can be used to reach both types of potential members. Please
consult other guides for additional creative suggestions for household recruitment
(see Resources).
•
Assemble a marketing team. In marketing for the 1998 season, HFS’s
Farm to Family Program director managed the marketing team consisting
of the former farm manager (hired part-time through the winter), the farm
liaison VISTA, and one other VISTA. Some members of the team are
assigned to target households, others to target organizations, but all team
members share ideas, resources, and contacts. For the first year, begin
several months in advance of the season. For subsequent years, begin soon
after the close of the previous farm season (mid-to-late autumn).
•
Identify potential member organizations. Start with groups with which
you already have ties, and then build on your connections in the
community. For the 1998 season, HFS aimed for thirteen organization
members and worked from a database of more than five hundred
organizations.
•
•
Use the collaborations you developed when you conducted your
needs assessments. Also, take advantage of members of your
advisory committee/board of directors and their connections.
•
Look in newspapers for community organization meetings, attend
them to get a feel for how the group works, introduce yourself to key
members, and if they seem to be an appropriate recruitment target,
get on the next meeting’s agenda.
•
Make many, many phone calls, and arrange meetings with potential
members to introduce the farm idea. HFS’s marketing team prefers
phone calls over letters of solicitation because they are not as easily
ignored and they initiate a personal connection.
•
In marketing organization shares, emphasize (and follow through on)
the additional benefits of a share: job training, education, recreation,
and increased contact between agency staff and constituents.
•
You may want to tie your pitch into the overall purpose of each
potential organization member. Appeal to the aspects of farm
membership that fit into their mission (e.g., nutrition education or
healthy and cohesive communities).
•
Finding excited and motivated staff members at potential member
organizations is key. An interested and well-connected staff member
can make membership happen. Seek out these kinds of people and
nurture their leadership.
Types of organizations to try (some of the organizations might have
enough money to co-sponsor additional organizations):
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68 - REPLICATION
•
Neighborhood block
clubs
•
Senior centers and
congregate homes
•
Churches and other
religious organizations
•
•
School Parent-Teacher
Organizations
Homeless shelters and
battered women’s
shelters Low-income
housing projects
•
Community activist or
development groups
•
AIDS/HIV homes
•
Social service agencies
targeting particular
ethnic or immigrant
groups.
•
Health, rehabilitation,
and family service
providers
Private, non-profit
health agencies
Develop an attractive, professional brochure, including photos and
graphics, an introduction to the principles of CSA, an estimate of what
comes in a share, and a sign-up form that can be returned. HFS designs
just one brochure to be used for both organizations and households.
•
•
•
Work with newspapers to cover the story of the farm. Try both regional
papers and small town papers. A food writer from Hartford’s major paper
publishes a story about HFS’s CSA each month during the growing season,
and smaller local papers often run columns.
•
Assemble a slide show of pictures taken during your first season to
present to potential members in marketing for the next season. Slide show
talks can be a powerful marketing tool for conveying the sensory
experience of the farm to potential members in both the household and
organizational categories. HFS asks returning members to attend slide
show talks to share their farm experiences. Give the slide show at:
•
public libraries
•
church and community group meetings
•
nature/environmental centers
•
potential organization members’ meetings.
We have discovered that, when targeting households outside of Hartford,
energy is best spent giving just one or two talks in each town. In all cases, a
“soft sell” slide talk is preferable to a “hard sell” talk; in other words, simply
give a presentation about the farm, saying that shares are available, rather
than asking outright for people to join.
⎝ Retaining Membership
•
Nurture your relationships with current members. Renewals should
constitute the bulk of membership after the farm’s first year. Returning
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REPLICATION - 69
members can help persuade potential members by speaking of the benefits
the farm has brought them and by giving advice about distribution and
other logistical issues.
•
We have found it helpful to maintain a database of past, present, and
potential member organizations, including each contact made with them −
phone calls, meetings, letters, etc. This keeps the process organized, allows
for information inheritance, and keeps a consistent flow of information
among marketing team members.
⎝ The Big Stumbling Blocks
Interested organizations will face a number of questions as they decide whether or
not to become members of the farm. The answers to these questions must ultimately
come from the organizations themselves, but it helps to understand the issues that
they face so you might propose creative suggestions tailored to their situations.
•
Who will receive the food? Staff at the organization will need to identify
constituents in need and devise a way to reach them or include them in the
farm project.
•
How do we pay for the share? Some organizations will find it difficult to
allocate funds for farm membership dues. For this reason, HFS cultivates
potential share sponsors while working to recruit member organizations.
Other organizations are able to do it on their own through grants,
donations, or help from member dues. Some organizations decide to
defray part of the cost of the share with a farm stand. It is important that
the farm stand customers be low-income people so that it does not
compromise the project’s mission.
•
How will we pick up and distribute the food? One car is generally not
sufficient to pick up the week’s share of produce, though two larger cars
may work. Because driving two cars requires at least twice the staff time,
using cars is not recommended. Many organizations already own vans, so
this question may become a matter of designating produce pick-up as a
new use for the van. Other organizations take advantage of businesses or
institutions in the community such as churches, local busing companies,
colleges and universities, Dial-A-Ride, the YMCA, and so on, for donated
van time. HFS helps by identifying and making initial contact with
transportation donors; then it is up to organization staff to work out the
details and maintain the arrangement. In terms of distribution, please refer
to the distribution section below for suggestions.
•
How will we allocate staff time for this? Some of our members hire
summer interns or enlist volunteers from their constituencies, and pick-up
and distribution becomes part of their jobs. Reliability may be an issue in
those cases. In others, distribution becomes an additional task for staff
members. This is one reason why it is so important to identify enthusiastic
and dedicated staff.
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70 - REPLICATION
The farm liaison works with organization staff to locate resources and solve
problems. The role of the farm liaison should be to empower and teach organization
staff or volunteers to carry out these tasks themselves.
Horace Bushnell
Congregate Homes
has been a member
of the farm since it
started in 1994.
Over the years they
have experimented
with a variety of
distribution
methods. This
particular year they
chose to distribute
farm stand style.
⎝
Activities, Community, and All the Extras That Make Our Members
Come Back
•
Harvest festivals and potluck
dinners.
•
Canning and preservation
classes.
•
Children’s gardens.
•
CSA newsletter.
•
Recipes.
•
Open House.
⎝ Bringing Together an Inclusive and Diverse Farm Community
As we bring together diverse communities as farm members, we must be sensitive to
the differences among people and the need for fostering equal relationships.
Questions of equality and difference pervade all aspects of the farm project, from
share price to vegetable selection to work requirements to farm activities. If we hold
a CSA potluck or harvest festival, will it be equally enjoyable and accessible for all
members? If we want to compile a cookbook of recipes used by CSA members,
how do we ensure a good balance of household and organizational member recipes?
How do we get equal representation on our advisory committee? Will our CSA
newsletter appeal to everyone? The most difficult situations involve participation by
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REPLICATION - 71
organization members − not just organization staff, but also their low-income
constituents.
There is no guaranteed path to equality and good participation, but some of the ways
we have tried have worked. Most of them involve reaching out to member
organizations’ constituencies in ways that are meaningful to them.
•
Invite organization members to share foods and recipes important to them
at potlucks and harvest festivals.
•
At farm events, make sure that entertainment is broadly appealing.
•
If your household members and organization members are geographically
separated, hold some events in each location.
•
Attend organizational member meetings to stir up enthusiasm for farm
events.
•
Whenever household members can be involved, a dimension of
community exchange is added.
•
CSAs must provide a wide variety of vegetables that appeal to all members
they wish to target. Holcomb Farm CSA, to be successful, has to satisfy a
community that includes middle to upper-middle class, primarily white
families, as well as primarily urban people of color.
•
Many families, no matter their background, over generations have lost the
skills to prepare fresh vegetables, so the Holcomb Farm CSA follows these
two practices:
•
Cater to vegetable preferences. Through annual surveys and simply
listening to members, find out what vegetables are in demand. A
balance can be difficult to pinpoint. HFS encourages all farm
members to expand their culinary horizons, so when AfricanAmerican block clubs members suggest that we grow more collards,
they get the bulk of the additional collards, but household members
also get more.
•
Provide recipes for everything, and make “veggie identification
sheets” available to all members. Give organizations identification
sheets, pictures of unfamiliar vegetables with their names printed on
them, so they can bring this information to their constituents.
•
HFS believes that the CSA work contribution should be shared equally
among household and organization members. HFS works to dispel the
idea that the poor work for their food. Group workdays for both
organization and household members are great opportunities for members
to meet and work alongside each other.
•
The farm should be a welcoming and attractive place for all members to
learn, socialize, work, and enjoy the landscape.
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72 - REPLICATION
⎝ Evaluation
•
To gauge whether members are getting a good deal on produce, conduct a
price comparison of the same set of produce at a supermarket. In addition
to comparing prices on conventionally grown produce, try to find
organically grown produce, which is often more expensive.
•
The farm liaison conducts interviews of all member organizations soon
after the close of the growing season. The members of the marketing team
concerned with households send out surveys to all members (see Appendix
F).
•
Surveys and interviews are conducted in the fall at the close of the season.
Whether surveys are sent out in the mail or available at the last pick-up,
attach them to renewal forms for the next year.
Creating a Farm to School Program
The Farm to School program moved into its first year as a full program in 1997;
prior to that it was a pilot program. Unfortunately, we could only provide
information on the pilot program. When considering whether to replicate this
project remember you can implement it in part or in its entirety. You can simply
introduce local produce into the schools, and/or develop a food education
component. The step-by-step instructions we give here are based on what is needed
for the entire program. Also, the instructions we give are based on HFS’s
experiences working with public schools that participate in the National School
Lunch Program (NSLP); private or parochial schools will have different guidelines
for food purchasing, nutrition and other logistical issues.
⎝ Building Collaborations and Resource Gathering
The first step is to identify key players in the areas necessary to the implementation
of your program. They should include, but are not limited to:
•
Board of Education
•
School district
director
food
services
•
School nutritionists
•
School administrators
•
PTO/PTA members
•
Community health agencies
•
Department of Agriculture
72
•
Cooperative Extension Service
•
Local chefs, chef organizations
•
Culinary schools
•
Produce suppliers/wholesalers
•
Local growers
•
Farmer groups (e.g., agriculture
marketing, NOFA, Farm Bureau).
REPLICATION - 73
Pitch your idea for the program to all players to enlist support and involvement in
planning. The collaborative effort should lead to a proposal to school officials. The
following list describes HFS’s non-school collaborators and how they helped; you
will find different partners depending on programs and resources that exist in your
community.
•
Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), operated by
the Cooperative Extension System, performs on-site nutrition education
and outreach.
•
Connecticut Nutrition Education and Training Program (CT NET) teaches
and develops nutrition curricula.
•
Connecticut Department of Agriculture assisted by identifying and
recruiting farmers and wholesalers handling Connecticut produce.
•
National Organic Farming Association of Connecticut (CT/NOFA) is an
independent non-profit organization that administers an organic
certification program. It assisted HFS by serving as advisors and
periodically attending meetings.
⎝ Developing a Proposal
School system and cafeteria issues. Alongside your collaborations with nonschool agencies, work with school system officials and staff to gain support for the
project and to develop a proposal for how the program will operate. The proposal
should outline the changes you want to implement, how you intend to make them,
and how long it will take.
First, you will need to determine the current status of food service operation. This
can be accomplished by interviewing the food service director and/or examining
purchasing records and existing guidelines. In public schools, NSLP rules will
determine many aspects of operation. The following questions will be important to
your research:
•
How do the cafeterias operate as a whole (e.g., students, staff, facilities,
scheduling)?
•
How are menus planned?
•
What are the budgetary and labor constraints facing the schools’ meals
program?
•
What are the quantitative, qualitative, and nutritional guidelines for meals?
•
Who are the cafeterias’ suppliers (NSLP guidelines as well as purchasing
records will be important here)?
•
What are they supplying?
•
What rules guide the bidding system?
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•
How much does it cost?
•
What are the purchasing guidelines for non-commodity items?
•
How often is it delivered and by whom?
Supplying produce. While developing other partnerships for this project and
creating the proposal, you will need to identify sources of produce to supply the
cafeteria. Depending on your region’s climate, produce might only be available at
limited times during the school year.
•
Which local growers or wholesalers of local produce, if any, would be
interested in supplying schools?
•
What would the terms of payment for these suppliers be?
⎝ Components of the Proposal
•
Objectives of the Program. What are the changes you want to make to
the lunch program and how will they impact students?
•
Timetable. Set goals that will be reached in a reasonable length of time.
•
Cafeteria: HFS increased the amount of local produce so that it
comprised seventy percent of the total fresh produce in the five pilot
schools in its first year and fifty-three percent in the fourth. Goals
were set at ten percent and forty percent, respectively, in ten schools
by year three.
•
Classroom: HFS developed the school program in two schools in
year one and five by year four. The goal was to implement the
education curriculum in ten schools by year three.
•
Literature Review. Research your schools, area’s production, and search
for others who operate similar programs, e.g. Guide to Starting a Local Food
Project Based on the Hendrix College Experience (see Resources).
•
Approaches and Methods.
•
How will you introduce the produce?
•
How will you implement the school program?
•
How will you measure your results?
•
Partnerships and Collaborations.
Describe each partner’s or
collaborator’s experience and how they will contribute.
•
Anticipated Costs. Set a budget with line items and a timeline.
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REPLICATION - 75
⎝ Distributing the Proposal
The proposal should be distributed to all the people with whom you have formed
collaborations. After a review period, a meeting should be held to discuss the
proposal. Collaborators should:
•
Make recommendations concerning the proposal
•
Develop an action plan that identifies tasks and assigns responsibility.
⎝ Introducing Produce into the Cafeteria
Once your proposal has been accepted and collaborations are in place, the next step
is to begin implementing the program. Give support in these areas to food service
directors and staff as the program gets started; eventually, they will take on more
tasks. The relationship between your organization and the food service will be
ongoing and dynamic as the program proceeds.
Purchasing. This is the first step in getting the food to the schools. There are
many factors that must be considered before a school can or will buy produce from a
new vendor.
•
Cost must be competitive with other sources; Hartford Schools send out
three bids.
•
A price quote must be forecast at least two weeks in advance, with a oneweek lead on the actual invoice.
•
Produce must be consistent in size, pack quantity, yields, and quality.
•
Students must be willing to eat the produce.
•
Extra labor must be minimized.
Quality
•
Federal and school produce specifications guidelines must consistently be
met.
•
Produce must be fresh and handled properly.
•
Produce must always taste and appear excellent.
Delivery. HFS’s original proposal for the program called for individual deliveries by
farmers to the schools. This method was not profitable for farmers, nor was it
convenient for the schools. The solution was a wholesaler who dealt with hundreds
of area farmers, including organic growers or those using Integrated Pest
Management (IPM), a low-level pesticide spray method, and could meet the need for
consistent pack sizes, quality, and quantity.
Menu
•
Inventory the facilities, equipment, labor budget, and production schedule.
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•
Plan four to six weeks in advance.
•
Use a produce availability chart, when creating your menu (see Appendix
G). This chart is specific to crops grown in Connecticut, and so it will vary
by region. Take the menu written by the schools and add or substitute
locally grown vegetables for produce already on the menu.
•
Review existing menus with the food service director. Pay attention to
students’ preferences and gather tips for preparation of new produce.
•
Review your menu one week in advance with the director and be willing to
make last minute decisions and changes.
Working with the cafeteria staff
•
•
Managers:
•
Supply information on the new foods, including handling,
preparation, and the menu schedule.
•
Familiarize them with the new foods. This might include taste testing
and food preparation demonstrations.
•
Managers are often creative and innovative at problem solving, but
staff turnover is high, which makes change difficult to implement. It
is best to work in increments and only implement new changes after
achieving success with previous ones.
Cafeteria staff workers. Levels of skill will vary among staff. It is safe to
say that most are familiar with heat-and-serve foods, but often have
minimal experience in preparing raw vegetables. To increase skill level,
workers should receive:
•
Food storage, handling and presentation guidelines
•
Periodic training by food service staff or local chefs or culinary
schools
Recognition is important to the morale of the workers, who are integral in
getting students to eat the food. They should receive:
•
Verbal, positive feedback
•
Thank you notes from principals, food service directors and students
•
Acknowledgment in school newsletters.
Promotion. This is done on several levels, all working toward the goal of
acceptability and consumption of the new produce by students.
•
Posters and food displays should be lively and colorful; when
possible, use holiday themes and tie into school programs and events.
•
Cafeteria line servers are the front line of promotion for the food
service. Servers who encourage students to take the new produce
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REPLICATION - 77
using persuasive language or by saying they personally like the food
have better results than just by offering the food.
•
Teachers are also great persuaders. If they promote a lunch food as
“tasty” and “good” when reviewing the menu, a student is more
likely to try it.
•
Learning activities have the biggest impact on students’ eating
behaviors. They are always more likely to eat a food they have
prepared, tasted, and learned about in the classroom.
Evaluation. This is essential to the continued success of the program. The most
informative methods of surveying are complex and laborious, but other less timeconsuming methods are available.
•
A plate-waste survey is the most effective, but is cumbersome and
expensive and was not tested here.
•
A daily log was kept by the cafeteria staff of items introduced,
number of portions served, portion size, description of preparation,
and labor used. This was tested by HFS and found to be very
effective.
•
In the absence of a plate-waste survey, staff observations are helpful.
A rough percentage of how many students eat the produce they take
can be informative.
⎝ Introducing Produce into the Classroom
In Hartford, this part of the program gets the most recognition, though both parts
are important to food system development and have been successful.
Target Audience. Students in grades K-6 seem to be the most receptive to handson food and nutrition education. Such lessons are often difficult to convey to older
students, whose dietary habits may be more entrenched. However, age-specific
curricula and lessons can yield success.
Recruiting Teachers.
•
•
How:
•
Use your proposal and contact principals to recruit teachers. The
proposal will give them a sense of the program and their role.
•
Talk to the teachers one-on-one. Explain how your curricula can fit
into their lessons on science, math, reading, social studies, art,
careers, and other topics.
•
Offer to perform a demonstration class.
Who:
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78 - REPLICATION
•
Elementary school teachers seem to have the most flexibility with
curricula and time. They also have their students for the entire day,
which allows you to build your program. Students also are more
receptive to learning about nutrition, as with most subjects, at this
age.
•
“Specials” teachers (life skills, nutrition, home and career skills, and
cooking) have the facilities (stoves, kitchenware) for cooking and
tasting classes. Teachers in these areas may collaborate with those in
other disciplines.
Recruiting Chefs. HFS was fortunate to have made contact with a local chef. If
you do not have such luck, here are a few places to contact them.
•
Contact area restaurants to see if the owners or their chef would be
interested in volunteering in the schools. Also try Culinary Institutes
or Schools.
•
Invite the “potential” chefs to observe a class or to take part in a
planned class.
Recruiting Farmers.
•
Farmers added during the initial proposal stage performed this task.
•
Should your contacts fail, obtain lists from your state’s Department
of Agriculture or Cooperative Extension office.
•
Inviting farmers to a class will give them a sense of what your goals
are in the classroom and let them decide how they can add to the
lessons.
Developing Curricula. The ultimate goal was to have teachers carry out the
curriculum themselves, HFS’s education coordinator planted the seeds by
establishing her own curricula, working closely with the pilot program’s teachers to
integrate the hands-on activities into the teachers’ lesson plans and performing the
lessons for nearly two years. The curricula can be found in “Farm Fresh Start: A
guide to increasing the consumption of local produce in the school lunch program”
(see Resources).
Evaluation. There are several methods of evaluating success. The most effective
one, a pre- and post-program survey, is costly and time intensive. We also asked
teachers to note daily behavioral and health changes in students who were and were
not responding to the program. While this was extra work for them, few seemed to
mind. You might also want to seek anecdotes from the students themselves.
⎝ Stumbling Blocks
While the cafeteria program is well within its timetable, the classroom project is not.
Teachers are very accepting of the program, but are reluctant to perform the classes
themselves. Some of the reasons for their hesitation include a lack of resources and
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REPLICATION - 79
the preparation time involved. Many have recently started to use the “Farm Fresh
Start Guide,” but most still look to HFS to come in and do the lessons. HFS prefers
not to encourage this type of dependency. To counter this, HFS produced the guide
to give teachers the lessons.
This process of training the teachers has been slow. After four years, a pool of ten
teachers has developed, and they are learning to turn to each other for resources.
This was a milestone in the pilot because the original five teachers are now training
and recruiting others for the program.
Teachers had trouble obtaining produce as well as facilities and utensils to conduct
the classes. To aid the program, HFS staff assisted teachers at one school in seeking
funds for kitchen and classroom equipment. This assistance resulted in grants to
purchase refrigerators, stoves, and other kitchen necessities for the program’s
continuance. HFS also directed them to area farmers and farmers’ markets, and
sometimes supplied them with CSA vegetables.
Modeling a Food Policy Commission After
The City of Hartford's
⎝ Kinds of Food Policy Groups
There are a number of models from which to choose when creating a government
food policy body. The Community Food Security Coalition’s Guide to Concept and
Implementation outlines these:
•
Local or state government formally creates a task force to respond to a
specific problem (e.g., endemic childhood hunger or extreme farmland
loss) to investigate the issue and make recommendations. Such bodies
typically are created just to fulfill those tasks and are dismantled once the
tasks are completed; however, a task force may recommend the creation of
a more permanent council or commission. A good example of this is the
Mayor’s Task Force on Hunger in Hartford. Created in response to a
study revealing extensive childhood hunger in Hartford, the Task Force
recommended the creation of the City of Hartford Advisory Commission
on Food Policy.
•
An ad hoc committee is similar in its duties to a task force but is not as
formal. While this means it is easier to form, its recommendations may not
carry as much weight.
•
A food policy council or advisory commission is created by city or state
statute and is permanent or “standing.” We will focus on this type of
body’s attributes below.
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⎝ Designing the Policy
A thorough food system assessment should demonstrate the extent to which your
city, town, county, or region needs a food policy or food system coalition, and what
type would best suit the existing resources, needs, and issues the area faces.
•
Look at your goals and resources, what services and organizations already
exist in the city, and how you hope to face food challenges when designing
the food policy.
•
By now you should have assembled representatives of food-concerned
agencies to discuss the service gaps they see as part of their work and to
figure out how these agencies ought to work together.
•
The type of commission you form and the commission’s goals are best
determined through the degree to which food system collaborators support
it. A commission is only as effective as its members make it!
An Advisory Commission is only one of many possible models for bringing these
groups together in a lasting and meaningful way, though they may have relatively
little actual authority.
•
As a government commission, it can both advise and obtain funding from
the government.
•
Food policy groups may take on many, varied activities because the
commission carries the combined power, resources, and experience of its
members.
•
The commission can act as a watchdog, a public advocate, an advisor to
multiple levels and branches of government, a collector and distributor of
information to both the public and government officials, and many other
things depending on the time, energy, and inclinations of its members.
⎝ Gathering and Using Government Support
The creation of a food policy body requires support within government if it is to be
implemented by municipal law.
•
If you have developed collaborations with legislators and government
administrators as suggested, you should already have strong allies ready to
commit their votes and backing for a city commission.
•
The results of your food system assessment also should serve as a powerful
argument for need. Make your case to other key policy-makers based on
your findings.
•
Work with legislators to develop ordinance language (see Appendix H).
•
Opposition or lack of support from municipal government can thwart the
best efforts to make food a prominent agenda item for policy makers. To
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REPLICATION - 81
anyone who encounters this problem, we can offer our encouragement to
persist in strengthening your coalitions!
⎝ How the Commission Runs
•
•
•
Use a yearly work plan to guide your activities.
•
Most parts of the work plan are repeated from year to year: for
example, meetings with particular city officials, scheduled Hunger
Reports and Supermarket Surveys, awards presentations, and yearly
informational mailings to churches and community groups.
•
Leave room in the work plan for advocacy on special issues and
involvement in new issues as they arise.
•
Take on one new substantive project each year; for example, in 1997
it was supermarket transportation, and in 1998 it will be involvement
with a Healthy Communities Initiative with the Department of
Health.
•
Revisit the work plan every few months to evaluate progress.
Conduct business meetings each month.
•
Use meeting space within a city government building to reinforce
your presence within government.
•
Invite other players in the food system to meetings.
•
Use the meetings as an opportunity to keep each other informed of
current food system events.
Form subcommittees to carry out projects such as an award event or a
survey.
⎝ Publicizing the Commission’s Work
Through all of the above projects and activities, involvement of news media is
critical. The problems of food insecurity require community if we are to overcome
them, and many Commission projects are excellent opportunities for a newspaper
article or column, an op-ed piece, a TV news story, or a public service
announcement to highlight the issues of your community’s food security.
⎝ Involving Policymakers
A key goal of Hartford’s Commission is to put food on the agenda for policymakers. Close and frequent contact with governments (particularly local but also
regional and state as appropriate) is integral to the Commission’s success. In
addition to being active in public policy issues, we maintain good contact with
government through a number of other practices.
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82 - REPLICATION
•
We include two ex-officio memberships on the Commission − one for the
City Department of Health, the other for the City Department of Human
Services.
•
We invite city government officials (usually the Mayor or Deputy Mayor,
the director of the Department of Health, and a few other relevant
officials) to each event or awards ceremony.
•
We meet annually with the Mayor of Hartford to discuss the Commission’s
progress, to raise concerns about current food issues, and to request
mayoral actions such as support for a community garden or farmers’
market, letters to other key officials, budget allocations, and appointment
of new Commissioners.
•
We send copies of all reports, including supermarket surveys, to the Mayor,
City Council members and heads of key departments within local
government.
•
We maintain an awareness of local and regional public policy issues with an
eye for how they may affect food. For example, if the regional transit
authority announces cuts in Dial-A-Ride funding, we might examine how
this would affect supermarket access and take appropriate action.
•
Because policy-making sometimes occurs outside immediate government
departments, we also stay abreast of non-government policy initiatives (e.g.,
the Greater Hartford Millennium Project, a regional initiative by business,
development, government, and community groups).
⎝ Contact with the Community
On the flip side of government and media involvement in Commission projects is
the need for meaningful, direct contact with the low-income communities the
Commission was created to serve.
•
Seek out and recruit diverse Commission members from both
organizations and the community at large. Encourage all Commission
members to discuss the strengths, challenges and complexities within the
low-income communities to which they belong or with which they have
contact.
•
Conduct direct surveys of community members or recipients of particular
types of services (e.g., residents about supermarket transportation
difficulties, children regarding the quality of SFSP meals they receive).
•
Commissioners should attend meetings of community groups to become
aware of the issues they are facing and to inform residents that there is a
food policy commission that exists to advocate on behalf of residents who
have food concerns.
•
Distribute information about food-related services or issues to the
community via columns in small community newspapers, community
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REPLICATION - 83
access television, radio, brochures or posters in libraries, community
organization offices, community health care providers, emergency food
providers, and social service agencies.
•
Hold an annual breakfast meeting or similar gathering for leaders of
community groups and local churches to keep them aware and informed of
Commission activities, and to enlist them as contact points for information
and services between the Commission and the community.
⎝ Evaluation
Evaluation is often difficult for many of the projects conducted by the Commission;
for example, we will never know how many people save how much money as a result
of the supermarket survey. We do get positive feedback from people who choose
where to shop based on the survey brochures. Other projects or activities have
direct results, such as a WIC office remaining open. The Commission does exercise
some formal self-evaluation tools.
•
The Commission’s annual report provides an opportunity for both
reflection on the past year’s work and planning and visioning for projects
in the year to come.
•
The Commission holds an annual evaluation and visioning session at which
Commissioners constructively criticize the Commission’s activities over the
year based on the successes and failures of the work plan.
⎝ Exploring New Territory
Because the Northeast Partnership is such a new program, Hartford Food System
has had little experience in operating it and cannot tell others how to develop one.
Working regionally should be a long-term goal of those working in food security,
especially those who have been successful at creating community food projects on
the local level. Connecting your region can be done in a variety of ways, including
regional meetings, conferences, coalitions, and listservs. While we cannot say which
way works best, nor advise you how to do it, anyone, regardless of location, is invited
to join the Northeast Partnership Listserv. Although it focuses on the Northeast
food system, it is an excellent forum in which you can learn about other community
food projects, solicit advice, and discuss your programs (see Appendix B).
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84
APPENDICES - 85
Resources
Comprehensive Food Security and Food Systems Studies, Reports, and Guides
Allan, Majid, et al. Fertile Ground: Planning for the Madison/Dane County Food System. Madison, WI:
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1997. Contact: Jerry
Kaufman, (608) 262-1004
Ashman, Linda et al. Seeds of Change: Strategies for Food Security in the Inner City. Los Angeles: UCLA,
1993. Contact: Community Food Security Coalition, (310) 822-5410
Hecht, Kenneth and Edward Steinman. Improving Access to Food in Low-Income Communities: An
Investigation of Three Bay Area Neighborhoods. San Francisco: California Food Policy Advocates, 1996.
Contact: CFPA, (415) 291-0282 x102
Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee. Food System Assessment Study. Milwaukee: Hunger Task Force of
Milwaukee. Contact: HTFM, (414) 962-3111
Joseph, Hugh, ed. Community Food Security: A Guide to Concept, Design, and Implementation. Los
Angeles: Community Food Security Coalition. Contact: CFSC, (310) 822-5410
Sustainable Food Center. Access Denied. Austin, Texas: Sustainable Food Center, 1995. Contact: SFC,
(512) 385-0080
Yazman, Melissa Beck. Guide to Starting a Local Food Project Based on the Hendrix College Experience.
Conway, AR: Hendrix College, 1991. Contact: Hendrix Local Food Project, Hendrix College, Conway, AR
72032.
Hartford Food System Program Reports and Other Material - Contact: (860) 296-9325
The Hartford Food System. The Bus Stops Here: Challenges to Food Security in Hartford. Hartford, CT:
The Hartford Food System, 1998.
---. City of Hartford Advisory Commission on Food Policy Annual Report. Hartford, CT: The Hartford
Food System, yearly.
---. Holcomb Farm CSA Annual Report. Hartford, CT: The Hartford Food System, yearly.
Related Guides and Reports
Farmers’ Markets
California Department of Food and Agriculture. Organizing a Certified Farmers’ Market. Sacramento, CA.
1992. Contact: Andy Fisher of the CFSC (310) 822-5410.
Sustainable Food Center. Farmers’ Market Workbook: How to start a farmers’ market in your
neighborhood. Austin, TX 1996.
Food Policy:
Food Policy Council of the City of Knoxville. Food Policies for Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville, TN:
Food Policy Council of the City of Knoxville, 1988. Contact: FPC staff, (423) 974-6267.
State of Connecticut Ad Hoc Food Security Committee. Toward Food Security for Connecticut. Hartford,
CT: The Hartford Food System, 1996. Contact: HFS, (860) 296-9325.
Toronto Food Policy Council. Toronto Food Policy Council Discussion Paper Series. Toronto, Ontario:
Toronto Food Policy Council, 1996-. Contact: Toronto FPC, (416) 392-1107.
Community-Supported Agriculture Guides and Publications:
Blake, Bill et al. Community Supported Agriculture: Making the Connection -- A Handbook for Producers.
Auburn, CA: UC Cooperative Extension. Contact: UC Cooperative Extension, (916) 889-7385.
Equity Trust, Inc. Gaining Ground: How CSAs Can Acquire, Hold, and Pass on Land. Voluntown, CT:
Equity Trust, 1998. Contact: Equity Trust, (860) 376-6174
Gilman, Steve, ed. CSA Farm Network. 2 vols. Stillwater, NY: Northeast Organic Farming Association,
1997-8. Contact: NOFA-NJ, 33 Titus Mill Road, Pennington, NJ 08534.
Farm to School Curricular Resources:
American Institute of Wine and Food. Sensory Sleuths: A SENSEational Lesson on Taste-y Food. AIWF.
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86 - APPENDICES
California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. Teacher Resource Guide. Sacramento, CA:
California Farm Bureau, 1995.
Campbell, S. and T. Winant. Healthy School Lunch Action Guide. Santa Cruz, CA: EarthSave Foundation.
1994.
Cooking with Kids. Cooking With Kids: A Public School Lunch and Food Education Program. Santa Fe,
NM: Cooking with Kids, 1996.
Hartford Food System. Farm Fresh Start: A Guide to Increasing the Consumption of Local Produce in the
School Lunch Program. Hartford, CT: Hartford Food System, 1997.
National Gardening Association. Grow Lab: Activities for Growing Minds. Burlington, VT: National
Gardening Association, 1990.
Palmer, M. and A. Edmonds. Vegetable Magic: A Preschool and Kindergarten Nutrition Education Source
Book. Storrs, CT: CT State Board of Education and University of Connecticut, 1981.
Pennsylvania Department of Education. Every Day, Lots of Ways: An Interdisciplinary Nutrition
Curriculum for K-6. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania NET, 1993
Conducting Focus Groups:
Kruegar, R. A. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. 2nd ed., Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, 1994.
Morgan, D. L. Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, 1993.
Weiss, R. S. Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York:
Free Press, 1994.
Needs Assessment Texts:
Meissen, Gregory and Joseph Cipriani. A Needs Assessment of Human Service Agencies in an Urban
Community. Wichita, KS: The Hawthorn Press, Inc., 1983.
Reid, William and Audrey Smith. Research in Social Work. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Soriano, Fernando I. Conducting Needs Assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1995.
Food Systems and Community Food Security Articles
Black, Jason, et al. Why Magazine: Special Issue on Food Security. Winter, 1996.
Cook, Christopher and John Rodgers. “Community Food Security: A Growing Movement.” Global
Pesticide Campaigner, Sept. 1996: 1+.
Cook, Christopher and John Rodgers. “Food First.” In These Times, 30 Oct., 1995: 24-27.
General Resources
United Way of America. Measuring Program Outcomes: A Practical Approach. United Way, 1996.
Contact: Local United Way.
World Hunger Year. World Hunger Year Media Guide. New York: World Hunger Year, 1997. Contact:
WHY, (212) 465-9274.
Additional Organization Contacts
Public Voice for Food and Health Policy (Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program staff). 1101 14th St., N.W.,
Suite 710, Washington, DC 20005. Telephone: (202) 371-1840.
CSA of North America (Community-Supported Agriculture resources). Based at the New England
Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, PO Box 608, Belchertown, MA 01007. Telephone: (413) 323-4531.
Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) (Community Childhood Health Identification Project reports and
other food policy resources). 1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 540, Washington, DC 20009.
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APPENDICES - 87
Glossary
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) -- A direct marketing system followed by an
increasing number of small US farms to support their enterprise, involve community members and
encourages sustainable growing and eating practices. The budget of the farm is divided among
community members who purchase a share of the produce, which is typically grown by organic
methods. The share entitles members to a portion of the season’s harvest of vegetables, fruits,
flowers, and herbs.
Cooperative Extension -- A program within USDA that extends nutrition, agriculture, food, and
other practical learning from a network of state land-grant colleges to state residents. Programs
within the Cooperative Extension System include agriculture workshops for farmers, master
gardener education, 4-H (youth programming) and EFNEP (see below) among others.
Dial-A-Ride -- A transit program found in many municipalities that shuttles carless individuals for
a low yearly rate. Many Dial-A-Ride programs are designated specifically for the elderly or residents
of subsidized housing projects. Dial-A-Ride is often a very important means of food access for
people who do not own a vehicle.
Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) -- A program created within the
Cooperative Extension System during the 1960’s. EFNEP provides education to help low-income
families, especially those with small children, to acquire knowledge and skills and to change their
behavior to achieve adequate diets providing normal nutrition.
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) -- A program jointly funded by the USDA and
participating states which provides vouchers to clients of the WIC Program (see below). These
vouchers can be used to purchase locally grown produce at farmers’ markets. The program was
created to expand local farmers’ urban market and to improve access to healthy fruits and
vegetables for low-income mothers and their young children.
Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) -- A USDA program which provides federal funding for
meals for children during summer recess. Funding is available for areas where at least 50 percent of
children live in families with incomes under 185 percent of the poverty level.
WIC -- Abbreviation for the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and
Children, a federal program created to ensure sound nutritional health for low-income pregnant
women, mothers of children five and under, and children from birth to five years. The program
provides assistance for buying specific types of nutritious foods along with nutrition and health
counseling.
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88 - APPENDICES
Appendix A
Senior Farmers’ Market Coupon Survey
These survey questions were used at the close of the 1989 farmers’ market season to evaluate the senior
pilot project in Hartford.
5. Compared to where you normally buy
fresh fruits and vegetables, what did you
thinkof
the
farmers’
markets
and
farmstands?
1. Did you use all of your farmers’ market
coupons?
yes
no
2. Which markets or farmstand did you go
to?
[List sites here]
A. Were prices at the markets or farmstands:
Comments:
B. Was access to the markets or farmstands:
3. Had you ever been to the farmers’ market
before?
better
better
worse
worse
the same
the same
C. Was quality at the markets or farmstands:
yes
no
better
4a. How did you get to the farmers’ market
or farmstand?
the same
Comments:
6. Did anyone shop with your coupons for
you?
bus
car
walk
Dial-A-Ride
with a friend
other
yes
no
Comments:
7. Overall, did you like having the coupons or
did you have any problems with them?
4b. Did you have any problems with your
transportation?
yes
worse
no
Comments:
88
APPENDICES - 89
WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Survey
These survey questions were used at the close of the 1996 farmers’ market season to evaluate
Connecticut’s WIC-FMNP.
1. Is this the first year you received the Farmers’ Market Coupons?
yes
no
2. Because of the farmers’ market coupon program, I or my family
a. Went to a farmers’ market for the first time
yes
no
b. Ate more fresh fruits and vegetables this summer than usual
yes
no
c. Plan to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables all year round
yes
no
d. Learned a new way to prepare or cook fresh fruits or vegetables
yes
no
e. Will continue to shop at farmers’ markets, even without coupons to spend there
yes
no
f. Learned a new way to store fresh fruits or vegetables to keep them from spoiling
yes
no
g. Bought a fresh fruit or vegetable that I had never tried before
yes
no
3. While you were at the farmers’ market, did you spend money or food stamps in addition to
your farmers’ market coupons?
money
food stamps
both
4. How did the quality of fruits and vegetables at the farmers’ market compare to their quality at
your regular grocery store?
better
about the same
worse
Appendix B
89
not sure
90 - APPENDICES
NEFOOD-L:
Creating New Connections in the Northeast
You are invited to join a new ONLINE FORUM called NEFOOD-L. NEFOOD-L is an electronic mail list that
allows subscribers to post messages to one address ([email protected]), and have those messages
distributed by email to all of the other subscribers on the list.
NEFOOD-L was created in July, 1997, in response to interest in improving networking and communications
among organizations in the Northeast involved in various sectors of the food system. It is also part of an initiative
to create a regional food security/food systems partnership, discussed at the New Connections in the Northeast
Food System conference held last March in Hartford.
NEFOOD-L...
...is a network of individuals and organizations working on community food security and sustainable food systems
in the six New England states, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvama. COMMUNITY FOOD SECURITY
promotes comprehensive strategies to provide an affordable and quality food supply for all members of a
community, and addresses a broad range of problems affecting the food system, economic opportunity, community
development, and the environment. SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS use environmentally-sound practices in all
stages of food supply: production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of wastes.
...provides an opportunity for people in organizations involved in anti-hunger, sustainable agriculture, community
development, education, urban gardening, economic development, community food security, local food systems,
horticulture, direct marketing, culinary arts, environmentalism, land preservation, public health, nutrition, and
related fields to discuss common ground and opportunities for working together.
...encourages requests to locate specific information on topics of interest or to find others doing projects, research,
or other activities related to your work; requests for technical assistance on designing or implementing projects;
brief descriptions of your organization’s activities; announcements of events; job notices or internship
opportunities
Other electronic lists (e.g. the Sustainable Agriculture Network and Ag-Impact) already provide a useful forum for
discussions and exchange of information on topics within particular fields. NEFOOD-L has been created to form
new connections among individuals and organizations focusing on community food security and sustainable food
systems, not to duplicate other lists.
If you use email regularly, and are interested in participating in the NEFOOD-L email forum, please send the
following message to the automated server at [email protected] to add your name to the NEFOOD-L list
(no subject line is necessary): SUBSCRIBE NEFOOD-L YOUR-NAME-HERE
Please circulate this invitation if you know others who would be interested in being part of the NEFOOD-L list. If
you have any questions about the list, please contact Ann Cherin, List Manager, at
[email protected]
NEFOOD-L is sponsored by the Community Food Security Northeast Partnership (CFS-NP), including
Hartford Food System. Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG), and the
Agriculture, Food, & Environment Program at Tufts University
90
APPENDICES - 91
NORTHEAST FOOD SYSTEM
PARTNERSHIP
c/o Tufts School Of Nutrition Science and Policy, 132 Curtis St., Medford, MA 02155
LOOKING FOR NEW CONNECTIONS? HELP OTHERS TO
CONNECT WITH YOU! IT’S JUST A SURVEY AWAY...
Would you like to learn about other organizations and people in the Northeast working on the same types of issues
that you do? Would you like to find a wider audience for your resources? Or perhaps find potential partners to
collaborate on a new project?
The Northeast Partnership is an emerging neiwork of people and organizations in the Northeast interested in
strengthening community food security and sustainable food systems - everything from anti~hunger, food access,
and nutrition to food and agricultural education, community development, and environmentally sound food
production. We are developing a regional information center to collect and disseminate information about the many
resources available in the Northeastern states. This includes the development of a database of organizations and
projects, and eventually an interactive web site. It also includes an electronic mailing list called Nefood~L*.
If you are interested in sharing information and learning about new resources and would like to be included in the
database/web site project, please take a few minutes to fill out and return the enclosed survey. Feel free to include
any organizational literature or additional information you think will be helpful. The survey asks for more than just
general information - we want to know about specific food systems/food security projects you are working on now,
and resources you can offer to others with similar interests.
How can you access this information? Call or email me at the numbers below. I look forward to receiving your
survey (Make me happy! I love getting mail!) -- MarIa Rhodes, Information and Outreach Coordinator, Northeast
Partnership, 617-628-5000 x2246, [email protected]
*lf you use e-mail, you can also join Nefood-L, an on-line mailing list for people interested in sustainable food
systems and community food security in the Northeast. To subscribe, send the following message in the body of the
text, leaving the subject line blank: subscribe NEFOOD-L your name. Send to the following address:
[email protected].
Northeast Partnership project sponsors and contacts:
Hartford Food System: Mark Winne: 860-296-9325 email:[email protected]
Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG):
Kathy Ruhf: 413-323-4531 email:[email protected]
Agriculture, Food, and Environment Program at Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy,
617-628-5000:
Molly Anderson (x2442) email:[email protected] Hugh Joseph (x5442) email:[email protected]
91
92 - APPENDICES
Appendix C
Focus Group Guide
I. Introductions
I want to have a discussion about food shopping in Hartford and in this neighborhood
discuss no right or wrong answers, confidentiality, want to include all opinions
ice-breaker: state name and favorite food
II. Discuss Food Shopping
where do you do most / majority of your food shopping?
why do you shop at this store?
do you also use medium size stores?
do you also use small corner stores?
can you compare the different stores in terms of:
prices
quality
variety
III. Transportation Issues
how do you usually get to the store? how do you usually get home from the store?
how far do you live from a major supermarket?
what are major problems with transportation and getting food?
IV. Other Food Programs - ways of getting food
open-ended: where else do you get food besides grocery stores?
probes: family, friends, neighbors
Uses of following programs - if they don’t mention program, then probe
soup kitchens / food pantries
Food Stamps
WIC
farmers’ markets
school lunch / breakfast program
community gardens
summer food program
how often do you use these programs?
If don’t use programs, why not?
social barriers
eligibility
access
V. Solutions
what could be done to make it easier to get food in your area?
what should be available in your community to make sure that families have
enough to eat?
92
APPENDICES - 93
Appendix D
Supermarket Transportation Interview Script
Hello, my name is _____. I’m conducting a survey for the City of Hartford Advisory
Commission on Food Policy. The survey’ s purpose is to find out how transportation
affects people’ s grocery shopping habits. It is completely confidential. Can you
participate in the survey?
A.
Are you a Hartford resident? (circle) Yes
No (if no, stop interview)
B.
What street in Hartford do you live on?
What is the nearest cross street?
C.
How many people are in your family?
D.
Which store do you do your largest grocery shopping trips at? (If they don’t
know what you mean by largest, say the trips when they buy the most groceries.)
What town is that store located in? Why do you shop at that store? ___
E.
How often do you go there? (don’t read options; circle the option their answer
fits into).
1. Once a month
2.Every 2 weeks
3.Once a week
4.More than once a week 5.Other - explain
F.
How many bags of groceries do you usually buy on one of those trips?
(Don’t read options; circle the option their answer fits into).
1. 1-2 bags 2. 3-5 bags 3. 6 or more bags
Comments: ____________________________________
G.
Please name all of the kinds of transportation you use to get to {name +
location of supermarket}. Which way do you use the most?
(Don’t read options unless it seems necessary. Check all that apply and circle the one
they say they use the most.)
1. Walk ___
2. Bus ___
3. Car - your own ___ - other’s car ___
4. Taxi ___
5. Dial-A-Ride ___
6. Other (specify)
H.
How long does it take you to get to the supermarket one way when you get
there by {answer circled above}? (don’t read options)
1.
10-15 minutes
2 15-30 minutes
3. 30-45 minutes
4. 45-60 minutes
5.
More than one hour
Comments: ____________________________________
I.
{If they mentioned bus in G} Do you use a transfer when you take the bus to
93
94 - APPENDICES
go food shopping? {circle}
Yes
No
J.
{If yes} What bus routes do you take? Where do you take those bus
routes?
K.
Where else do you buy food? What town is it located in?
L.
Is getting to the supermarket difficult or hard for you? {circle}
Yes No
M.
{If yes} Why? (don’t read options; have them come up with answers;
options below are likely answers; circle numbers for all that apply}
1.
I have to change buses several times.
2.
Grocery bags are heavy and difficult to carry on the bus.
3.
The bus does not go all the way to the store so I have to walk some of the way.
4.
It takes a long time to get to and from the store.
5.
I have to take a taxi to the store, which is expensive.
6.
I have to walk from the store with heavy grocery bags.
7.
Other reasons:
N.
1.
to?
2.
3.
4.
{If yes in L}
Would you go to the supermarket more often if it was easier to get
Yes No
Would you buy different kinds of food?
Yes No
{If yes to 2} What kinds of food would you buy?
Would you buy more food?
Yes No
0.
Do you feel that transportation limits your choice of supermarkets? Give
comments if you like.
Thank you for your help.
For office use: Interview site ___
Name of interviewer
94
APPENDICES - 95
Appendix E
HARTFORD MAIN STREET MARKET CUSTOMER SURVEY
Hello, I am a student at ___________ and I am taking part in a research project about the Main Street Market. I
would like to ask you a few questions about your visit to the Market today. Your answers will be used by a local
organization that is studying the future of the Market. Would you mind taking a few minutes to answer some
questions?
{To select one respondent from a group of people} To make the survey easier, I would like to ask questions of only
one person. Who may I speak with?
1. To get to the Main Street Market today, did you walk, take a bus, or drive in a car?
a. Walk
b. Bus
c. Car
d. Other (please specify):
2. How long did it take you to get to the Market today?
a. Less than 10 minutes
d. 30-60 minutes
b. 10-19 minutes
e. More than 1 hour
c. 20-29 minutes
3. Including yourself, how many people are with you at the Market? ______________
4. About how long were you at the Market today?
a. Less than 15 minutes
d. 1-2 hours
b. 15-29 minutes
e. More than 2 hours
c. 30-59 minutes
5. Before today, when was the last time you came to the Main Street Market?
a. First time here {Skip to Question 7}
c. Last week
d. Within the last month
b. Another day this week
e. More than 1 month ago
6. When was the time before that?
a. Second time here
d. Within the last month
b. Another day this week c. Last week
e. More than 1 month ago
7. Did you buy from any of the farmers today?
Yes
No
{If answered Yes to Question 7, ask the next question. Otherwise, skip to Question 9}
8. Did you use Farmers’ Market Coupons or food stamps, or both?
a. Farmers’ Market coupons
b. Food stamps
c. Both
d. Neither
e. Did you buy from any of the other vendors today? Yes
No
9. How many different farmers or vendors did you buy from today? ___________
10. Counting everything that you bought, how much money did you spend at the Market today?
11. Where does your household buy most of its food? Name of store and location:
12.
What additional products would you like to see sold at the Market?
95
96 - APPENDICES
What else?
What else?
13.
How did you first hear about the Main Street Market?
a. Saw the market
b. Newspaper advertisement story
d. Someone told me about it
e. Radio announcement
c. Poster or flyer
f. Other (Please specify):
14. What things do you like about the Main Street Market?
What else?
What else?
15. What things do you like least about the Main Street Market?
What else?
What else?
16. The Market is scheduled to operate through October. Would you like to see the Market continue next
year? Yes
No
17. Why or Why not? _________________________________________
18. What is your home zip code?
19. About how old are you? ________
20. Including yourself, how many people live in your household: _____
21. What range includes your total household income, before taxes, for 1996?
a. under $10,000
b. $10,000 to $14,999
c. $15,000 to $24,999
d. $25,000 to $34,999
e. $35,000 to $49,999
f. $50,000 and over
That is all of the questions. My supervisor may want to call a few of the people I interviewed to see if I conducted
the survey correctly. May I have your name and telephone number for this purpose?
NAME:
TELEPHONE NUMBER:
Thank you very much for your help!
FOR OFFICE USE
Interviewer:
Time (hour only):
Place:
1.
1
Male
2
2.
1.
Female
White 2. Black
3
4
5
3. Latino
4. Other
5. Don’t know
This is to certify that all of the questions were answered by the survey respondent and truthfully.
Signed:
96
APPENDICES - 97
Appendix F
Holcomb Farm CSA
1997 Organizational Survey
A. General Assessment:
1.
How many families/individuals received produce through your organization each week?
2.
How has the season gone in general? Do you think your organization’s participation in the CSA project has
been worthwhile? What have the general responses of the produce recipients been?
3.
What were the main reasons that your organization joined or continued membership with the farm this season?
(e.g.: fresh produce, life/job skills building, nutrition and food preservation education, getting out in the fresh
air, community interaction, strengthening relationships with produce recipients)
Were these goals achieved? What aspects of the program facilitated or hindered those accomplishments? What
could be done to address obstacles next season?
(Are you interested in the other goals mentioned above as well?)
B. Produce:
1.
Were your clients happy with amount, quality, and variety of produce they received?
Did you feel it was a good value of produce for the price?
2.
Were your clients able to use all the produce that they received? What vegetables were not used? Were the
recipes provided at pick-up helpful?
3.
What vegetables would you like to see more of? What new crops would you like to see grown next year?
4.
Did your organization make use of the pick-your-own crops? If not, why? Were you unaware of their
availability? Not interested in harvesting them? Interested but lacking time to pick them?
5.
How does the seasonality of the CSA project fit into your organization’s programs and objectives? Would you
be interested in receiving crops such as carrots, potatoes and onions into the winter for an additional charge?
Would you be interested in receiving crops such as strawberries, spinach, rhubarb, asparagus, and radishes as
early as May, for an additional charge?
6.
Do you feel that additional information and/or classes on preparation, storage, and nutritional content of
produce would be useful to your clients?
C. Educational and social aspects of the CSA project
1.
Did members of your organization visit the farm this season for events other than produce pick-up? (e.g.
bringing clients up to pick or weed or for an educational event, etc.) About how often?
97
98 - APPENDICES
2.
Would you like your members to visit the farm more often? If so, what would facilitate such visits? If not,
why? What would make visits to the farm more appealing? Do you feel welcome at the farm?
3.
What other activities did your organization participate in (e.g. nutritional classes, seed sorting, etc.)? Were
those activities worthwhile?
4.
Which activities did your clients most enjoy or benefit from? In what other ways would you like to see your
clients participate in the CSA program?
5.
Were you aware of the 50hr/season work commitment?
appropriate / low ?
6.
If produce for all member organizations were delivered to a central drop-off site in Hartford, would you be
more or less inclined to bring clients to the farm for work days or educational and social events?
7.
Are you interested in collaborating with other organizations for classes, transportation to the farm, or other
membership needs?
8.
Would someone form your organization be willing to serve on a farm committee?
Do you feel that this commitment is
high /
D. Logistics:
1.
Can you estimate how many hrs./week your coordinator spent on farm related activities?
2.
Was it clear to you which HFS staff person to contact about various issues, e.g. payment, visits to the farm, etc.
Were staff helpful in discussing and/or responding to your concerns?
3.
Did your organization have any trouble getting to the farm for produce pick-up? Please describe. What could
be done to alleviate the problem?
4.
How convenient was the pick-up system this season? Were the times and ways in which the you have any
suggestions for improving the pick-up system?
5.
How well do you feel your system of distributing produce to clients worked? Did you effectively reach your
intended recipients?
6.
Do you have any suggestions regarding pick-up and distribution for organizations joining 1998?
E. And Finally...
1.
Can you recommend other Hartford Community organizations that might be interested in the CSA?
2.
Does your organization intend to continue membership in the CSA next year? Why or why not?
3.
Do you have any other comments, concerns or suggestions?
98
APPENDICES - 99
Holcomb Farm Community Supported Agriculture Project 1997 Survey
Please fill out and drop in box or mail with your 1998 CSA Membership Registration to Hartford Food System,
509 Weathersfield Ave., Hartford, CT, 06114. Let us know what you think! Your feedback is very important and
will help us plan next year’s CSA operation. Thank you for your time.
Name:
1. How did you hear about the CSA?
Do you have suggestions for increasing membership?
2. What do you like about being a member of the CSA?
3. What crops (vegetables, herbs and flowers) would you have liked more of?
Less of?
What new crops would you like to see?
4. What could we do better next year?
What changes would you like to see?
5. Do you plan to re-join the CSA?
Yes
No
Please comment on your response.
6. Please check aspects of the CSA that are important to you and add your own comments:
Reasonably priced produce
Fresh produce
Convenient distribution
Organic production methods
99
100 - APPENDICES
A good variety of produce
Involving low-income people
New and/or unusual varieties
Opportunities to participate in activities
Support of Holcomb Farm’s development
Foods that fit your diet and lifestyle
100
APPENDICES - 101
Appendix G
Local Produce Used in Hartford School Food Services 1996-1997:
Items used to replace shipped in produce:
Lettuce and greens
greenleaf
redleaf
romaine
hydroponic butterbib
spinach
Vegetables
cabbage
carrots
cucumbers
onions
peppers
radishes
tomatoes
Fruit
apples
(Macintosh, Empire, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious, Macoun)
pears
(Bartlett, Bosc)
peaches
strawberries
watermelon
New Items (not used before)
Vegetables
green and yellow string beans
broccoli
cauliflower
red cabbage
acorn squash
butternut squash
fresh potatoes
fresh corn
New Recipes
Roasted, seasoned potatoes
Roasted butternut squash
Roasted acorn squash wedges
Cole slaw
Marinated broccoli
Romaine salad with carrots and red cabbage
Tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad
Broccoli pizza
Vegetable tuna salad
101
102 - APPENDICES
Appendix H
HARTFORD MUNICIPAL CODE
DIVISION 13. ADVISORY COMMISSION ON FOOD POLICY
Sec. 2-326.
Created.
There is hereby created the advisory commission on food policy.
Cord. No. 54-91, 10-15-91)
Sec. 2-327.
Purpose.
(a) There shall be a policy to improve the availability of food to persons in need within the city, and there shall be a
food policy advisory commission.
(b) The purpose of the policy shall be to integrate all agencies of the city in a common effort to improve the
availability of safe and nutritious food at reasonable prices for all residents, particularly those in need. The goals to
be accomplished by the policy are:
(1)
To ensure that a wide variety of safe and nutritious food is available for city residents;
(2)
To ensure that access to the safe and nutritious food is not limited by economic status, location or other
factors beyond a resident’s control; and
(3)
To ensure that the price of food in the city remains reasonably close to the average price existing in the
balance of the state.
(c) The policy shall be implemented by the city as follows:
Transportation. In planning, providing, coordinating and regulating transportation
within the city, city agencies shall make the facilitation of transportation of food to distribution points and ready
access to a reasonable food supply a principal part of any such action.
(1)
(2)
Direct service. City agencies and employees providing food or the financial means of obtaining food shall
plan, execute and evaluate such programs and actions in order to achieve maximum efficiency in providing food
and to assure that such programs are reaching the residents in need of them.
(3)
Land use. City agencies and employees in determining the use to be made of city parks, school yards,
rights-of-way, surplus properties and redevelopment parcels shall give special consideration to the benefit of using
such sites, at least in part, for food production, processing and distribution. The city, on a regional level, shall act to
preserve farmland for truck farming, which will serve as a nearby source of fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and milk.
(4)
Lobbying and advocacy. The city in its presentations before state and federal legislatures, state and
regional agencies and anti-hunger organizations shall stress the need for programs and actions which will improve
the opportunities of city residents to obtain adequate diets. Such programs and actions shall include maintenance of
the state and regional agricultural infrastructure.
(5)
Referrals to social services. City social service workers shall be especially diligent in referring persons in
need of available sources of food best suited for their needs.
102
APPENDICES - 103
(6)
Education. The city in providing a wide range of educational opportunities for adults shall emphasize the
importance of a sound diet for the family and provide courses in the production, selection, purchase, preparation
and preservation of food.
Business development. The city in its work of developing new businesses and expanding existing
businesses shall give priority to those food-related businesses improving access to affordable and nutritional food.
(7)
(8)
Operational and health inspections. The city in its role of maintaining the quality and healthfulness of the
food supply shall take into account that licensing and inspection can seriously burden small businesses, and a
policy shall be followed providing a reasonable balance between protection of the food supply and the negative
financial impact upon needed food-related small businesses (9)
Direct and indirect purchase of food. The city government, in its role as a major food purchaser from local
outlets, and administrator of food assistance programs, shall consider that its purchasing decisions can affect the
viability of producers and vendors, and shall consider such impact in making purchasing decisions.
(10)
Support of private efforts. The city in providing funding for private efforts to assist people in obtaining
food and in communicating with organizations engaged in such private efforts shall encourage, promote and
maximize such efforts.
(11)
Emergency food supplies. The city in its emergency planning function shall provide for an adequate
reserve supply of food to be available at reasonable prices if the city’s and region’s supply of food were to be interrupted and shall periodically reassess its ability to provide such special supply.
(12)
Monitoring and communicating data. The city shall continuously collect data on the extent and nature of
public food programs and hunger in the city and shall quarterly issue a report with findings and recommendations
to the food policy advisory commission.
(13)
Administration. The city manager in administering the affairs of the city shall seek ways of improving the
means of providing persons in need with wholesome food and. diets and shall work with the commission to combat
hunger in attaining its goals.
(14)
Intergovernmental cooperation. The food policy advisory commission shall have the cooperation of all
departments in the city in the performance of its duties. All departments shall supply the commission with all
information and reports requested in order that the goals of the city and the commission may be realized. The city
shall provide clerical services to the commission as needed.
(Ord. No. 54-91, 10-15-91)
Sec. 2-328. Membership.
The food policy advisory commission shall consist of fifteen (15) members who shall serve for three-year terms
without compensation and be appointed by the mayor, with the approval of the council. Of the fifteen (15)
members first appointed, five (5) shall be appointed for terms of one (1) year, five (5) for terms of two (2) years
and five (5) for terms of three (3) years. Of the fifteen (15) members, one (1) shall be the city manager or his/her
designee, nine (9) of such members shall be persons actively engaged in programs for combating hunger and
improving the production, processing and distribution of food to persons in need and shall include representatives
from the food, industry, consumers, dietitians, the city administration and public and private nonprofit food providers, and five (5) of such members shall be persons chosen from the public at large. City employees and persons
not residing in the city shall be eligible for membership in the commission. The mayor shall annually designate one
(1) member to act as chairperson. The commission shall meet at least once per month. A quorum shall consist of
eight (8) members. The mayor, director of social services and director of health, or their designees, shall be ex
officio members of the commission with the right to vote. Members and officers shall serve until their successors
are appointed.
(Ord. No. 54-91, 10-15-91)
Sec. 2-329.
Goals of commission.
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104 - APPENDICES
The goals of the food policy advisory commission shall be as follows:
(1)
(2)
To eliminate hunger as an obstacle to a happy, healthy and productive life in the city;
To ensure that a wide variety of safe and nutritious food is available for city residents;
(3)
To ensure that access to food is not limited by economic status, location or other factors beyond a
resident’s control;
(4)
To ensure that the price of food in the city remains at a level approximating the level for the state.
(Ord. No. 54-91, 10-15-91)
Sec. 2-330.
Powers and duties of the commission.
The powers and duties of the food policy advisory commission shall be as follows:
(1)
Explore new means for the city government to improve food economy and the availability, accessibility
and quality of food and to assist the city government in the coordination of its efforts;
(2)
Collect and monitor data pertaining to the nutrition status of city residents;
(3)
Seek and obtain community input on food economy and the availability, accessibility and quality of food
to persons in need within the city;
(4)
Obtain updated statistical information and other data from city agencies relating to hunger in the city and
programs in existence and being planned to reduce hunger and improve the obtaining of nutritious food by
residents in need;
(5)
Observe and analyze the existing administration of city food distribution programs; and
(6)
Recommend to the city administration adoption of new programs and improvements to (or elimination of)
existing programs as appropriate.
(7)
Submit an annual report on or before October 1 to the common council with copies to the mayor and city
manager summarizing the progress made in achieving each of the goals set forth in section 2-329 above.
(Ord. No. 54-91, 10-15-91)
104
APPENDICES - 105
105
106 - APPENDICES
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APPENDICES - 107
107
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