Grace’s face lit up as she detailed the future she envisions and the goals she has for Farmlink’s newly-established International Team this summer, remarking on the fulfillment she derives from efforting to reduce food insecurity. “This is kind of all I want to do for the rest of my life,” she professed.
A rising senior at the University of Southern California studying Public Policy with a minor in Real Estate Development, Grace Cortese joined The Farmlink Project over a year ago as part of the Fundraising Team. Grace’s familiarity with the charitable food space extends back to her childhood, during which she often tagged along with her mother to volunteer at food banks in the Los Angeles area. While her involvement with The Farmlink Project has been a “natural progression” from such experiences, Grace never expected to co-lead an entire team, let alone one that did not even exist at the time.
Grace and her co-lead Tyler Senzon took on International as a growth project while working with the Fundraising and Deals teams respectively.
“Growth projects are a super special part of Farmlink,” she explained. “They’re projects that don’t fit into any current teams and push the boundaries of the work we are currently doing at Farmlink.”
The duo worked together to research the viability of international expansion and received the green light to onboard fellows as a full-time team this summer. When I asked her about the need to have an independent International Team, Grace replied, “The International Team has a lot of overlap with other teams and we’re really excited to partner with the Farms, Deals, Policy, and Hunger and Outreach Teams on research projects. Being our own team, however, allows us to focus on the unique aspects of international projects that would otherwise be distracting to teams focused on domestic work.”
The first day of onboarding this term, and with that, the official start of the full-time International Team, represented a moment of pride for her and Tyler. She praised Farmlink’s mission to fundamentally change our food system and prevent food waste by acting as a link in a broken supply system. Noting identical issues around the world, Grace expressed high expectations for the International Team and shared her aspirations to move a few million pounds of food overseas in just a few years.
“We want to focus on countries in which our model is replicable, meaning countries in which food insecurity and food waste coexist,” Grace elaborated on the team’s agenda for the summer, adding that they will focus on identifying these countries and developing networks of farms and food banks within them. “We want to find solutions that acknowledge both the similarities and differences and partner with existing organizations.”
Though she dreams of replicating Farmlink’s success outside of the United States, Grace cautioned against adopting a westernized view of countries on the receiving end of aid. Referring to Farmlink’s partnership with Bancos Alimentos de México (BAMX), a network of food banks providing support to food-insecure populations around Mexico, she underscored the work being done elsewhere and the International Team’s emphasis on supporting rather than overtaking ongoing efforts.
“We are not going to start something new there. There are amazing people already doing amazing work and we just want to support them.”
That support will look different day-to-day based on what the team discovers through their work. But for now, the overarching priority remains on researching and designing the most sustainable, scalable way to operate in countries with diverse infrastructural capacities and community needs. This entails locating farms and food banks abroad, cultivating relationships with like-minded organizations, discerning their unique challenges, and responding accordingly. She concluded our conversation with advice she gives to her fellows as they navigate their first term as a full-time team: “Farmlink is special because you get to say yes to opportunities. Jump in with both feet!”
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.
.jpeg)
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.
< BackGrace’s face lit up as she detailed the future she envisions and the goals she has for Farmlink’s newly-established International Team this summer, remarking on the fulfillment she derives from efforting to reduce food insecurity. “This is kind of all I want to do for the rest of my life,” she professed.
A rising senior at the University of Southern California studying Public Policy with a minor in Real Estate Development, Grace Cortese joined The Farmlink Project over a year ago as part of the Fundraising Team. Grace’s familiarity with the charitable food space extends back to her childhood, during which she often tagged along with her mother to volunteer at food banks in the Los Angeles area. While her involvement with The Farmlink Project has been a “natural progression” from such experiences, Grace never expected to co-lead an entire team, let alone one that did not even exist at the time.
Grace and her co-lead Tyler Senzon took on International as a growth project while working with the Fundraising and Deals teams respectively.
“Growth projects are a super special part of Farmlink,” she explained. “They’re projects that don’t fit into any current teams and push the boundaries of the work we are currently doing at Farmlink.”
The duo worked together to research the viability of international expansion and received the green light to onboard fellows as a full-time team this summer. When I asked her about the need to have an independent International Team, Grace replied, “The International Team has a lot of overlap with other teams and we’re really excited to partner with the Farms, Deals, Policy, and Hunger and Outreach Teams on research projects. Being our own team, however, allows us to focus on the unique aspects of international projects that would otherwise be distracting to teams focused on domestic work.”
The first day of onboarding this term, and with that, the official start of the full-time International Team, represented a moment of pride for her and Tyler. She praised Farmlink’s mission to fundamentally change our food system and prevent food waste by acting as a link in a broken supply system. Noting identical issues around the world, Grace expressed high expectations for the International Team and shared her aspirations to move a few million pounds of food overseas in just a few years.
“We want to focus on countries in which our model is replicable, meaning countries in which food insecurity and food waste coexist,” Grace elaborated on the team’s agenda for the summer, adding that they will focus on identifying these countries and developing networks of farms and food banks within them. “We want to find solutions that acknowledge both the similarities and differences and partner with existing organizations.”
Though she dreams of replicating Farmlink’s success outside of the United States, Grace cautioned against adopting a westernized view of countries on the receiving end of aid. Referring to Farmlink’s partnership with Bancos Alimentos de México (BAMX), a network of food banks providing support to food-insecure populations around Mexico, she underscored the work being done elsewhere and the International Team’s emphasis on supporting rather than overtaking ongoing efforts.
“We are not going to start something new there. There are amazing people already doing amazing work and we just want to support them.”
That support will look different day-to-day based on what the team discovers through their work. But for now, the overarching priority remains on researching and designing the most sustainable, scalable way to operate in countries with diverse infrastructural capacities and community needs. This entails locating farms and food banks abroad, cultivating relationships with like-minded organizations, discerning their unique challenges, and responding accordingly. She concluded our conversation with advice she gives to her fellows as they navigate their first term as a full-time team: “Farmlink is special because you get to say yes to opportunities. Jump in with both feet!”
Grace Cortese
International Team Lead
Grace’s face lit up as she detailed the future she envisions and the goals she has for Farmlink’s newly-established International Team this summer, remarking on the fulfillment she derives from efforting to reduce food insecurity. “This is kind of all I want to do for the rest of my life,” she professed.
A rising senior at the University of Southern California studying Public Policy with a minor in Real Estate Development, Grace Cortese joined The Farmlink Project over a year ago as part of the Fundraising Team. Grace’s familiarity with the charitable food space extends back to her childhood, during which she often tagged along with her mother to volunteer at food banks in the Los Angeles area. While her involvement with The Farmlink Project has been a “natural progression” from such experiences, Grace never expected to co-lead an entire team, let alone one that did not even exist at the time.
Grace and her co-lead Tyler Senzon took on International as a growth project while working with the Fundraising and Deals teams respectively.
“Growth projects are a super special part of Farmlink,” she explained. “They’re projects that don’t fit into any current teams and push the boundaries of the work we are currently doing at Farmlink.”
The duo worked together to research the viability of international expansion and received the green light to onboard fellows as a full-time team this summer. When I asked her about the need to have an independent International Team, Grace replied, “The International Team has a lot of overlap with other teams and we’re really excited to partner with the Farms, Deals, Policy, and Hunger and Outreach Teams on research projects. Being our own team, however, allows us to focus on the unique aspects of international projects that would otherwise be distracting to teams focused on domestic work.”
The first day of onboarding this term, and with that, the official start of the full-time International Team, represented a moment of pride for her and Tyler. She praised Farmlink’s mission to fundamentally change our food system and prevent food waste by acting as a link in a broken supply system. Noting identical issues around the world, Grace expressed high expectations for the International Team and shared her aspirations to move a few million pounds of food overseas in just a few years.
“We want to focus on countries in which our model is replicable, meaning countries in which food insecurity and food waste coexist,” Grace elaborated on the team’s agenda for the summer, adding that they will focus on identifying these countries and developing networks of farms and food banks within them. “We want to find solutions that acknowledge both the similarities and differences and partner with existing organizations.”
Though she dreams of replicating Farmlink’s success outside of the United States, Grace cautioned against adopting a westernized view of countries on the receiving end of aid. Referring to Farmlink’s partnership with Bancos Alimentos de México (BAMX), a network of food banks providing support to food-insecure populations around Mexico, she underscored the work being done elsewhere and the International Team’s emphasis on supporting rather than overtaking ongoing efforts.
“We are not going to start something new there. There are amazing people already doing amazing work and we just want to support them.”
That support will look different day-to-day based on what the team discovers through their work. But for now, the overarching priority remains on researching and designing the most sustainable, scalable way to operate in countries with diverse infrastructural capacities and community needs. This entails locating farms and food banks abroad, cultivating relationships with like-minded organizations, discerning their unique challenges, and responding accordingly. She concluded our conversation with advice she gives to her fellows as they navigate their first term as a full-time team: “Farmlink is special because you get to say yes to opportunities. Jump in with both feet!”
%20Large.jpeg)
.png)
.JPEG)
.png)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
