Since devastating storms struck Texas last month, its farms have suffered unfathomable losses while food banks have seen dramatic increases in demand. Record-breaking freezing temperatures resulted in an estimated $600 million in losses to Texas farmers and ranchers. Meanwhile, as power outages and boil-water notices spread across the state, millions of people found themselves in need of support from aid-providing organizations.

Our fundraising team launched a campaign to provide aid to Texas which has to date has raised $47,412 (including a ten thousand dollar gift from BEM Systems). On the other side of the Farmlink Project organization, our Core Pillar teams—which facilitate the logistics of connecting surplus from farms to communities in need—quickly set to work. Caroline Spertus, one of the leads of our Deals Team, explained how “we were able to respond almost immediately to an acute need by leveraging our existing relationships and sticking to process.” The Deals Team, Caroline said, didn’t stray from their tried and true methods: they started by reaching out to farms and food banks we’d already worked with and then focused all of The Farmlink Project’s Power Hours (the easiest way for external volunteers to get involved) on locating produce in Texas. Most significantly, Caroline reflected upon “how powerful The Farmlink Project's ability to be reactive can be.”

The Farmlink Project has facilitated deliveries totaling 338,474 pounds of produce to food banks in Texas since the upheaval caused by the unexpected storms. Our partnership with Chipotle proved fruitful once more as they encouraged their partnered farms to donate produce to this cause. In two weeks, ten deliveries went out to seven cities across the state. One delivery that went to North Texas Food Bank included 39,603 pounds of bottled water—a scarce necessity due to the widespread lack of access to drinkable water. Two more deliveries went out to San Antonio Food Bank, and a smaller load of 6,000 pounds of carrots went out to Brighter Bites, an organization that provides bags of nutritious, fresh food to families of schoolchildren.

As an organization born out of a crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic, we are committed to directing our resources to communities that need it most. When confronted by the constant hardships that plague this country and its food system, we make sure to dedicate our organization to do all that we can to support those who have fallen and use our platforms to amplify their voices and tell the stories that go unheard.

_{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.