As students are returning to in-person classes, The Farmlink Project is slowly hiring full and part-time paid employees to help ensure the longevity and sustainability of the work we do. Margaret Li, 19,  first joined The Farmlink Project back in May 2020 as a volunteer staff member. She is now on a leave of absence from school and is working as one of The Farmlink Project’s 11 paid employees. When she’s not busy as our Media team’s Senior Lead Designer, she works part time for a ski resort in Lake Tahoe, California. Since her start at The Farmlink Project, Margaret has been an integral part of our team, designing our website and social media graphics, implementing SEO (search engine optimization), and helping with email campaigns. Today, she is giving us all a quick look into a day in her life.

Thanks for following along with my day! The Farmlink Project has become such an important part of my life, and we couldn’t do all we do without the support of all of you.

_{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. 

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.