Despite moving from Mexico to Austin, Texas when he was only six years old, Andrew Hojel maintained a close relationship with his family and connection to Mexico. But it wasn’t until college when his frequent visits back to Mexico coupled with his fluency in Spanish gave him the opportunity to help farmers and people in need throughout Mexico.
Andrew’s involvement in The Farmlink Project was initiated by his college roommate at Stanford. James Kanoff, one of the founders and early visionaries of The Farmlink Project, and Andrew were college roommates last year before COVID-19 struck and sent students home. Soon after, James brought his idea about how to help solve the issues of food waste and food insecurity to Andrew who decided to join the team and utilize his computer science skills to help internal development at The Farmlink Project.
James and Andrew frequently talked about their dreams and aspirations for the future of The Farmlink Project. The roommate pair had a vision of one day having international Farmlink team members hopping on Zoom calls and each person’s background would be the flag of their country. “James was always talking about how awesome it would be to go global and really try to extend our impact around the world,” remarked Andrew. Around September after the internal Farmlink team had a few months of successfully finding and moving surplus food within the United States, Andrew began working to make this global Farmlink dream a reality by looking into moving food in Mexico.
Andrew was able to utilize his personal connections in Mexico to find farmers, food banks, and organizations to launch The Farmlink Project’s first international initiative. “It started with Mexico because it would have a huge positive impact on communities in need and really help sustain farmers’ livelihoods. Even more so than in the US, extra income for farmers is incredibly significant in Mexico,” explained Andrew. The logistics of moving food in Mexico brought a different set of challenges than The Farmlink Project has faced in the American food supply chain, but Andrew was able to get in touch with an organization called Grupo Paisano, whose mission is to give microloans to farmers to help grow and sustain their farming operations. Grupo Paisano provided vital support to our Mexico operations, giving the Farmlink Mexico team access to their trucking and freight resources as Farmlink’s US transportation partners are focused domestically. Andrew described Farmlink Mexico’s supportive and mutually beneficial relationship with Grupo Paisano: “We really help each other. We buy surplus food from their farmers, so they were super incentivized to work with us and help us source and move food.” Working with Grupo Paisano has been a tremendous help in the success and sustainability of the Farmlink Mexico team.
Andrew continues to be a part of the Mexico team, translating and communicating with people in Mexico, coordinating with Grupo Paisano, and building upon his and James’ dream of growing The Farmlink Project globally. In addition to Farmlink Mexico, Andrew spends his time working on the Accelerator Product team, working to build technological solutions for scaling The Farmlink Project as we develop into an increasingly more sustainable operation. Andrew is excited about the future of The Farmlink Project as he works on two teams that seek to expand on the mission of finding surplus food and helping both farmers and communities in need.
These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?
During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy.
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The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.
Whats next?
Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.
< BackDespite moving from Mexico to Austin, Texas when he was only six years old, Andrew Hojel maintained a close relationship with his family and connection to Mexico. But it wasn’t until college when his frequent visits back to Mexico coupled with his fluency in Spanish gave him the opportunity to help farmers and people in need throughout Mexico.
Andrew’s involvement in The Farmlink Project was initiated by his college roommate at Stanford. James Kanoff, one of the founders and early visionaries of The Farmlink Project, and Andrew were college roommates last year before COVID-19 struck and sent students home. Soon after, James brought his idea about how to help solve the issues of food waste and food insecurity to Andrew who decided to join the team and utilize his computer science skills to help internal development at The Farmlink Project.
James and Andrew frequently talked about their dreams and aspirations for the future of The Farmlink Project. The roommate pair had a vision of one day having international Farmlink team members hopping on Zoom calls and each person’s background would be the flag of their country. “James was always talking about how awesome it would be to go global and really try to extend our impact around the world,” remarked Andrew. Around September after the internal Farmlink team had a few months of successfully finding and moving surplus food within the United States, Andrew began working to make this global Farmlink dream a reality by looking into moving food in Mexico.
Andrew was able to utilize his personal connections in Mexico to find farmers, food banks, and organizations to launch The Farmlink Project’s first international initiative. “It started with Mexico because it would have a huge positive impact on communities in need and really help sustain farmers’ livelihoods. Even more so than in the US, extra income for farmers is incredibly significant in Mexico,” explained Andrew. The logistics of moving food in Mexico brought a different set of challenges than The Farmlink Project has faced in the American food supply chain, but Andrew was able to get in touch with an organization called Grupo Paisano, whose mission is to give microloans to farmers to help grow and sustain their farming operations. Grupo Paisano provided vital support to our Mexico operations, giving the Farmlink Mexico team access to their trucking and freight resources as Farmlink’s US transportation partners are focused domestically. Andrew described Farmlink Mexico’s supportive and mutually beneficial relationship with Grupo Paisano: “We really help each other. We buy surplus food from their farmers, so they were super incentivized to work with us and help us source and move food.” Working with Grupo Paisano has been a tremendous help in the success and sustainability of the Farmlink Mexico team.
Andrew continues to be a part of the Mexico team, translating and communicating with people in Mexico, coordinating with Grupo Paisano, and building upon his and James’ dream of growing The Farmlink Project globally. In addition to Farmlink Mexico, Andrew spends his time working on the Accelerator Product team, working to build technological solutions for scaling The Farmlink Project as we develop into an increasingly more sustainable operation. Andrew is excited about the future of The Farmlink Project as he works on two teams that seek to expand on the mission of finding surplus food and helping both farmers and communities in need.
Andrew Hojel
Accelerator Product Team
Despite moving from Mexico to Austin, Texas when he was only six years old, Andrew Hojel maintained a close relationship with his family and connection to Mexico. But it wasn’t until college when his frequent visits back to Mexico coupled with his fluency in Spanish gave him the opportunity to help farmers and people in need throughout Mexico.
Andrew’s involvement in The Farmlink Project was initiated by his college roommate at Stanford. James Kanoff, one of the founders and early visionaries of The Farmlink Project, and Andrew were college roommates last year before COVID-19 struck and sent students home. Soon after, James brought his idea about how to help solve the issues of food waste and food insecurity to Andrew who decided to join the team and utilize his computer science skills to help internal development at The Farmlink Project.
James and Andrew frequently talked about their dreams and aspirations for the future of The Farmlink Project. The roommate pair had a vision of one day having international Farmlink team members hopping on Zoom calls and each person’s background would be the flag of their country. “James was always talking about how awesome it would be to go global and really try to extend our impact around the world,” remarked Andrew. Around September after the internal Farmlink team had a few months of successfully finding and moving surplus food within the United States, Andrew began working to make this global Farmlink dream a reality by looking into moving food in Mexico.
Andrew was able to utilize his personal connections in Mexico to find farmers, food banks, and organizations to launch The Farmlink Project’s first international initiative. “It started with Mexico because it would have a huge positive impact on communities in need and really help sustain farmers’ livelihoods. Even more so than in the US, extra income for farmers is incredibly significant in Mexico,” explained Andrew. The logistics of moving food in Mexico brought a different set of challenges than The Farmlink Project has faced in the American food supply chain, but Andrew was able to get in touch with an organization called Grupo Paisano, whose mission is to give microloans to farmers to help grow and sustain their farming operations. Grupo Paisano provided vital support to our Mexico operations, giving the Farmlink Mexico team access to their trucking and freight resources as Farmlink’s US transportation partners are focused domestically. Andrew described Farmlink Mexico’s supportive and mutually beneficial relationship with Grupo Paisano: “We really help each other. We buy surplus food from their farmers, so they were super incentivized to work with us and help us source and move food.” Working with Grupo Paisano has been a tremendous help in the success and sustainability of the Farmlink Mexico team.
Andrew continues to be a part of the Mexico team, translating and communicating with people in Mexico, coordinating with Grupo Paisano, and building upon his and James’ dream of growing The Farmlink Project globally. In addition to Farmlink Mexico, Andrew spends his time working on the Accelerator Product team, working to build technological solutions for scaling The Farmlink Project as we develop into an increasingly more sustainable operation. Andrew is excited about the future of The Farmlink Project as he works on two teams that seek to expand on the mission of finding surplus food and helping both farmers and communities in need.
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