Local Foods Connection Combats Hunger and Supports Small Farmers

Non-profit organization creates new market for farmers and introduces low-income Iowans to fresh local produce.

By Caroline Gottschalk-Druschke

In the late 1990s, Laura Dowd volunteered on Susan Jutz’s ZJ Farm in Solon, Iowa, as a working shareholder of the Local Harvest CSA. There was only one problem: Dowd’s inexperience with farming meant that she worked much more slowly than Jutz’s farm-hand children, who, recalls Dowd, “seemed surprised that a person could behave so awkwardly in a farm field.”

Dowd realized that the Jutz family didn’t really need her help to grow vegetables; what they did need, however, was help selling those vegetables. So Dowd moved from field to office and began to work on a new program that would connect produce farmers with an untapped market – low-income families.

The new Local Foods Connection (LFC) started in 1999 with the purchase of one Local Harvest CSA share which was donated to a client of the Iowa City Domestic Violence Intervention Center. Initial funding came from Dowd and her husband and Local Harvest CSA subscribers who were asked to donate toward the purchase of a CSA share for a low-income family.

As founder and executive director, Dowd has since turned Local Foods Connection (originally dubbed “Adopt-A-Family”) into an innovative and well- respected non-profit that, in 2007, purchased weekly shares of fresh local food from 10 area farmers to give to 40 qualified families.”

How the program works

The premise is deceptively simple: individuals and organizations donate money, labor, and cookware to Local Foods Connection which, in turn, purchases CSA shares from local farmers. Weekly shares are provided during the growing season to low-income residents who are referred to LFC from a variety of social service agencies. In exchange for the free shares of produce, clients agree to participate in educational activities, which also earn them points that can be exchanged for cookware.

Dowd is quick to point out, “Local Foods Connection does not ask for donations from farmers.” After all, that would defeat Local Foods Connection’s dual purpose of providing low-income Iowa residents with high quality, fresh food and promoting and supporting local small farmers who champion environmentally friendly growing methods.

LFC runs largely on volunteer labor and maintains low staffing and operating costs. Its 2008 spring farm workday drew some 125 volunteers, primarily University of Iowa students recruited through the website www.volunteermatch.org . About 40 additional volunteers help to write grants, create blog posts, translate materials into Spanish, check over food fact sheets for dietary standards, staff events, provide accounting services and perform general office work.

Members of the New Pioneer Co-op are invited to support the program by donating their dividend checks, which resulted in a $15,000 contribution in 2007. LFC also receives grant funding and donations from area businesses.

Dowd is passionate about hunger and food security, responding in large part to the reality that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 17.6 percent of Johnson County residents lived below the poverty level in 2006 (while the U.S. average was 13.3 percent). She is just as passionate about the relationships she cultivates with local farmers.

A farmer's perspective

One of the farmers currently working with Local Foods Connection is Maury Sass of Sass Family Farm in Riverside, Iowa. He says an immediate benefit of his four-year working relationship with the organization is the guaranteed market for his produce that results from the CSA share purchases.

Sass admits that the CSA creates a lot of work for him and his wife, Sherry, who, he explains, takes great pride in making sure that their produce is “never dirty, always fresh.” However, he says the benefits of their relationship with Dowd and Local Foods Connection extend beyond immediate revenue.

As part of Local Foods Connection’s educational mission, Dowd frequently escorts client families on visits to local farms so they can meet the area farmers who provide their food. She explains that she needs to sell the local food concept to the families.

“Simply paying for the CSA share is not nearly enough,” she says.

Dowd says that clients need to be educated and encouraged at the beginning of the growing season about the box after box of greens that appear in their weekly CSA shares. This education and support help ensure that clients stay with the program — and it works. In fact, some 80 to 90 percent of Local Foods Connection’s clients return for multiple years.

Sass laughs when he describes clients’ frequent reactions to his farm. “They love the farm. They love the country. Of course, they’re more excited about being on an Iowa farm and seeing the animals than they are about eating the produce, but it’s a start.”

As Sass sees it, though, “Local Foods Connection has more and more impact every year, bringing fresh produce to average people in Iowa City. They’re eating a better diet – more lettuce and things.”

He says on a small scale, Laura is promoting the family farm. “I see my neighbors farming bigger and bigger farms and I’m not interested in that,” Sass says. “I’m from the old school. I like the small farms and I want to be able to make a living from that.”

Local Foods Connection, it seems, helps the Sass Family do just that.

Connecting with farmers markets

Most of the Local Foods Connection farmers deliver their CSA shares to farmers markets for families to pick up and as a way to build new business. Sass, however, explains that his delivery van is too small to transport some 50 CSA shares at once. Instead, he delivered last year’s shares door-to-door and, in 2008, is delivering all of the LFC shares to the nearby New Pioneer Co-op for pick up. This arrangement introduces clients to the member-owned natural foods store.

Distributing the CSA shares at the Iowa City Farmers Market is convenient for the farmers and it draws Local Foods Connection’s clients to the farmers market, many for the first time. The availability of EBT (electronic benefit transfer) machines at the market enables food stamp recipients to purchase fresh food there, creating a new market for low-income clientele.

In addition to broadening the customer base at the Iowa City Farmers Market, LFC has helped local CSAs thrive through more than $20,000 in purchases from local farmers in 2007. In addition, LFC promotes local CSAs through an annual CSA Fair and distribution of 500 free CSA Guides in 2008.

Local Foods Connection's future

Dowd’s vision is for Local Foods Connection to provide people with the tools and encouragement to learn about fresh produce so they will continue to support local, environmentally friendly farmers for years to come.

Dowd suggests that others interested in starting a similar program in their area should begin by doing some research. It is crucial, she thinks, to make sure there is both a need for such a program and at least a bit of a demand. Social service agencies, in particular, need to be persuaded that this is a useful and helpful program for their clients.

“Everyone who volunteers for Local Foods Connection believes in a set of core values. We believe that no one should go hungry in a country as wealthy as ours,” Dowd explains. “We believe that everyone should have access to food that is safe to eat, healthy for our bodies, and that tastes good.

“We believe that the best source of healthy food is healthy farms.”

www.localfoodsconnection.org

localfoodsconnection.wordpress.com

~Caroline Gottschalk-Druschke has been a volunteer and friend of Local Foods Connection for the last year.She is currently splitting her time between Iowa City and Chicago, where she is finishing her PhD in rhetoric and teaching writing courses at the University of Illinois at Chicago.