Local Food Gains Traction At USDA
Ag Secretary Vilsack lays out priorities for $4 billion program
In This Issue
• Thursday’s Chicago Metro Farmers Markets
• Local Food Gains Traction in New USDA Iniitiative
• Trendspotting with Naturally Chicago and Boulder
Thursday’s Chicago Metro Farmers Markets
Accuweather.com forecast: Sun and clouds mixed, p.m. t-storm possible, high 78
Weather.com forecast: Sun and clouds mixed, high 76
Thursday, June 10
Austin City Market, 5610 W. Lake St., Chicago*, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Daley Plaza City Market, 50 W. Washington St., Chicago, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Glencoe Farmers Market,Wyman Square, Glencoe*, 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Growing Home Wood Street Farm Stand, 1844 W. 59th St., Chicago, Noon to 6 p.m.
LaGrange Farmers Market, 53 S. LaGrange Rd., LaGrange, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Libertyville Farmers Market, 413 N. Milwaukee Ave., Libertyville, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lincoln Square Thursday Market, W. Leland & N. Lincoln Aves., Chicago, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Low-Line Market, 3400 N. Southport (at CTA Brown Line), Chicago, 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Local Food Gains Traction In New USDA Initiative
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack held a webinar Tuesday elaborating on the $4 billion in funding to address major shortcomings in our nation’s current food system, announced Monday by the White House. While the details still need to be filled in, Vilsack’s words sounded reassuringly familiar for advocates of local food, small to mid-sized farms, socially disadvantaged farmers, and food access advocates.
USDA had expressed a higher priority for these constituencies in its call for public comment on President Biden’s Executive Order 14017, which seeks concrete responses to the weaknesses in the nation’s supply chains that were exposed by the COVID crisis. But the White House is forging forward even before the comment period ends on June 21. (Click here to learn more about the public comment period.)
Vilsack stated that many of the issues USDA will be addressing — such as insufficient farm incomes, soil erosion, land concentration, and global warming — pre-date COVID and were exacerbated by the pandemic.
He said the $4 billion in funding, part of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Initiative, will focus on four areas: food production, with emphasis on individual producers; the supply chain for processing of food; distribution and aggregation; and consumers and markets.
The following are key quotes from Vilsack’s comments (italics added by editor for emphasis):
• “We’ll begin, for example, providing additional resources for beginning farmers and socially disadvantaged farmers. We’ll look for ways to help and provide assistance to those who work on the farm, and those who work in processing facilities. We’ll look for a way in which we can encourage the transition of conventional agriculture to organic agriculture if people choose to do so. All designed to create greater resilience in terms of the number of people available to farm and the types of farming systems that we have. You'll also see investments in urban agriculture as well.”
• “On the food processing side, we're very focused on trying to create more options for producers. We saw during the pandemic and most recently with the cyberattack that a disruption of one or two plants can cause some pretty significant disruption in the market overall. So what you'll see is Investments designed to provide existing small and medium-sized processing capacity, but also to expand capacity, a way in which we can look for a unique partnership between federal and state governments to try to expand processing capacity and facilities to create more markets for our farmers.”
• “On the distribution and aggregation side, you've already seen some of the Investments that we recently announced, efforts to try to provide our procurement dollars in a way that encourages and supports small, mid-sized farming operations, specialty crops, socially disadvantaged producers. But you'll continue to see more investments in the development and strengthening of food hubs so that we have a strong local and regional food system.”
• “And on the markets and consumer side, you're going to continue to see us try to focus on ways in which we can expand access to healthy foods. We've already provided a number of grants and a number of programs designed to incent the purchase of healthier foods. You're going to continue to see more of that over the course of the next several months.”
• “Another way is you can look at it is in terms of how we are we're going about the transformation of our food and farm system. We want to make it more resilient, which means we need to continue to invest in making sure that there are multiple ways for people to get into the farming business and to stay in business. We want to make sure that it is profitable for farms of all sizes. That means more new and better markets need to be developed and invested in. We want to make sure that it's sustainable and circular and regenerative in its approach, and we want to make sure that it is equitable in its application so that people of all races, ethnicities, gender and so forth are able to access the programs fully and completely at USDA.”
• “We've got a dairy donation program that is going to enable dairy producers to more quickly shift in the event of future disruptions from foodservice, from grocery store and retail sales that might not be available for whatever reason, into food assistance.”
• “We're excited about the opportunity to take our emergency food programs, our farm to food bank programs, to create opportunities and resources that will better link our procurement efforts with small and socially disadvantaged producers and to make sure that specialty crops are more readily available to families in need.”
• “We're really excited about the opportunity to create resources for food banks and food pantries across the United States to have the capacity to do a better job of storage and refrigeration of those specialty crops, of those fresh fruits and vegetables.”
• “What we are looking at, and what we're trying to figure out is, how do we do a better job of allowing a transition if and when there is a major disruption of say the foodservice industry, where 50% of our food goes into currently, how do we pivot, how do we transition more quickly, more effectively into a food assistance mode?”
• “We saw early in the pandemic destruction of food, which was very difficult to see when at the same time we saw long lines of people in need of food… Many of these food banks were not equipped to be able to handle a major influx of meat or fresh produce or whatever, or dairy products all at one time. They just simply didn't have the storage and refrigeration capacity. And so therefore you had circumstances and situations where again animals were destroyed, milk was dumped and so forth. So we're trying to figure out ways in which we can avoid and eliminate that, and in doing so, I think we also create that opportunity for longer-term connections across the full range of agricultural products and food products that could be made available to families in need of assistance, which I think food banks have been anxious to use.”
• “This is a major challenge, it's a major opportunity. We've gone through a very difficult and very tragic circumstance with COVID. It has exposed a lot of challenges within various aspects of our economy. And the only way that we can do justice and pay homage to those who have lost their life through COVID and to all the amazing people that worked on the front lines of ensuring that our COVID relief response was effective is to make sure that we take full advantage of this crisis and convert it into an amazing opportunity. And that's what we are very much committed to doing at USDA, very much committed to doing what the president has instructed us to do. Every aspect of our operation needs to be built back better.”
[Note: Agriculture Secretary Vilsack has also been named to head up the adminstration’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo are co-chairs.]
Trendspotting With Naturally Chicago and Boulder
Webinar Monday Illuminates Key Issues for Good Food Entrepreneurs
Naturally Chicago — a program on which I did much work at FamilyFarmed — is collaborating with Naturally Boulder Monday on an interactive, experts-driven webinar on major food trends. The webinar, titled “Better for You Trends,” takes place Monday (June 14) at 4:30 p.m. central. (Click the button below to register.)
The following is the description provided by Naturally Chicago:
What is the future of food in the natural and organic products industry? Learn from trend experts Andrew Henkel, Senior VP of Growth Solutions at SPINS, and Blake Mitchell, Principal of Interact, then join rotating discussion groups focused on evolving trends with members of Naturally Boulder and Naturally Chicago.
Engage with the Expert
Following the trends discussion, participants can also attend small group sessions with leading specialists to discuss topics important to them. These topics include:
Faux Meat: Behroze Mistry, EVP Innovation, Meati
Raising Capital: Ashley Hartman, Bluestein Ventures
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Ryan Pintado Vertner, Founder, Smoketown Strategy
Product Innovation: Alison Velazquez, CEO and Founder, Skinny Souping
Marketing: Kim Feil, CMO, Aspire Healthy Energy Drinks
Plant Based Beverages: Doug Radi, CEO, Good Karma
This interactive session will be a great opportunity to learn from and connect with industry leaders and trend-spotters from these two great food cities.