In normal times, Edwina Valdo, a tribal member and program coordinator at the Pueblo of Acoma, can be found working in the health and human services division of the pueblo and managing grants. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, she has taken on the role of food pantry supervisor. The pantry was established to meet the needs of the Pueblo of Acoma after travel outside tribal land boundaries was restricted to contain the coronavirus. The food pantry serves approximately 375-400 families weekly.

The Pueblo of Acoma is the longest continuously inhabited pueblo and houses approximately 700 families. “Our population is from infants to elders,” Edwina said of her community. “[Pueblo] culture is transmitted orally through stories the elders share with the younger generation, so we try or best to safeguard our elders and provide for them and make sure they’re taken care of.”

Edwina herself grew up in the Pueblo of Acoma and earned her bachelor’s degree in community health before returning to work in the Pueblo of Acoma’s tribal administration. She has been working there for three years.

The Pueblo of Acoma’s main revenue comes from the tribal-operated casino, with 250 employees from the tribe as well as its neighboring cities of Albuquerque and Grant, New Mexico. There is a K-8 school on the reservation, and high schools on a neighboring reservation and in Grant. While the majority of those who grow up on the reservation stay, some leave to pursue employment in neighboring cities and across the country.

The biggest challenge Edwina and her team have faced has been storing large quantities of food for distribution. Since the onset of the pandemic and the opening of the community food bank, the Pueblo of Acoma has purchased multiple industrial-sized refrigerators and freezers. However, the July 31st-donation of 43,000 pounds of fingerling potatoes from Mountain Valley Produce in Colorado to the Pueblo of Acoma will be delivered to tribal members in the neighboring cities of Albuquerque and Grant, New Mexico. “It’s a large donation and we don’t want any of it to go to waste,” Edwina said.

“The highlight for me is that we continue to have more families sign up [for the food bank] each week - our numbers haven’t plateaued and we keep growing, and we’re always looking for other resources to bring more food so that we can ensure we’re serving all that do apply,” she said.  

_{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.