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Mar 03, 2021

Federal working lands conservation programs help make farms more viable, financially and environmentally. The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) offer farmers critical financial resources for conservation projects that fight climate change, mitigate pollution, enhance habitat. However, compared to other regions of the country these programs are underutilized in the Northeast, especially by farmers of color.

Mar 03, 2021

The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (New Entry) in Beverly, MA is a program of the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy. Through courses, workshops, and hands-on trainings, access to land at their 15-acre incubator farm (USDA Certified Organic), and connections to markets through the New Entry Food Hub, New Entry offers a pathway for beginning, immigrant, and refugee farmers to get on the land and start their own operations. With support from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), New Entry is conducting three training projects in collaboration with partners across the Northeast to support their farmers’ needs.

Mar 03, 2021

American Farmland Trust launched their Farms Under Threat initiative in 2016 to document the extent, diversity, location, and quality of agricultural land in the continental United States, as well as the threats to farmland from expanding commercial, industrial, and residential development. In 2020, they published new data about state level threats and policy responses.

Mar 03, 2021

Throughout the Northeast, organizations we spoke to with Farm to Families Food Box contracts (the component of CFAP that funded food boxes from farmers and distributors to local emergency food programs) expressed their excitement in being able to provide food to families in their communities while providing a market for local farmers. However, many reported losing their contracts in the third and fourth round of contract renewals-- a trend mirrored by the loss of contracts serving smaller farms nationwide--or declined to reapply because the requirements were too onerous. Small scale producers have expressed a desire to bring the program back to its roots: connecting local farmers with new markets while supporting food insecure families with quality food.

Mar 01, 2021

When the pandemic hit, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) shifted the long-term business and succession planning services normally provided through its Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program to emergency business assistance and rapid response coaching, a mobilization they first modeled after Hurricane Irene in 2011. A key part of VHCB’s work since late March has been helping businesses pivot to new sales channels and to apply for COVID relief, including PPP, EIDL, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), and state relief programs.

Mar 01, 2021

The Rodney Reservoir Community Garden is the largest community garden in Wilmington, Delaware, with more than 6,100 square feet of growing space. After an urban agriculture mini-grant from the New Castle Conservation District allowed the garden to repair its infrastructure, the garden was able to help meet its community’s hunger needs by participating in the Harvest 2020 campaign, an effort organized by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to encourage individuals to grow their own food and donate a portion to combat increasing hunger and food security.

Mar 01, 2021

For Melissa Law, one of four farmers at Bumbleroot Farm in Windham, Maine, climate change is deeply personal, as she has been forced to adapt to more erratic weather patterns and more severe storms in the six years she and her partners have owned their farm. Bumbleroot has endured drought and hail storms, high winds and intense rain events. Because of this, Melissa clearly sees the need for more state and federal action to help farm businesses weather the impacts of climate change and incentivize farmers to use practices that mitigate the impacts for the broader community. This understanding led Melissa to become the farmer representative on the Maine Climate Council (MCC) – a group of diverse stakeholders tasked with establishing strategies to help the state meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and ensure the resiliency of communities, industries, and people across the state. Melissa and Ellen Griswold, Maine Farmland Trust’s Policy and Research Director, are part of the Natural and Working Lands Working Group (NWLWG), a MCC working group charged with developing recommendations related to agriculture, forestry, and natural lands. Amanda Beal, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, is a member of the MCC and one of the NWLWG Co-Chairs.

Mar 01, 2021

In the Hudson Valley region of New York State, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming was able to support accessibility for the farmers in its Hudson Valley CSA Coalition thanks to a USDA Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP, formerly known as FINI) grant. The funds allowed them to pilot their “CSA is a SNAP” program to address the structural mismatch between Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); CSA farmers rely on the cash they receive when members buy in at the start of the season, while SNAP participants receive benefits each month. The program uses GusNIP funding to capitalize a revolving loan fund. The fund allows the Coalition to pre-purchase and subsidize shares from CSA farms that the farms then sell to SNAP users at a 30% discount. The SNAP monies collected by the farms are then earmarked to be returned to the revolving fund at the end of the season.

Mar 01, 2021

Before the pandemic, Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s mobile market had exclusively connected wholesale buyers, including restaurants, schools, universities, hospitals, and grocers, to small and mid-sized farmers though an aggregated online order form, where farmers list their wares, set their own prices, and track their sales in real time. Once orders are placed, farmers bring their products to Farm Fresh for aggregation and delivery to customers on the food hub’s delivery trucks.

Mar 01, 2021

When the pandemic hit Pittsburgh, PA, Grow Pittsburgh combined a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan with grants from private sources to retain as many employees as possible as they experienced precipitous drops in sales, donations, and the volunteers they rely on.