The organic and local food movement is sometimes criticized for catering to the elite, an argument summarized well in the title of Mark Winne's recent article (an excerpt from his book, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty): "The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get Local and Organic."

It's a no-brainer that fresh local food must become accessible to everyone, especially those in need. One important market to focus these efforts on is getting more attention lately: the thousands of food banks across the U.S.

At food banks, people in need can pick up three-days worth of food (typically) for the month to help them through tight times. In 2005, USDA estimated that more than 35 million Americans were "food insecure."

While it's widely known that food banks get food donations from grocery stores in their area, it's less known that some of these leftovers come from farmers' markets – usually providing the fresh local food we're talking about here. Still, food banks never have enough fresh produce, yet it's these vegetables and fruits that provide food bank goers "a sense of dignity," offering a choice between fresh and canned green beans, for example.

But some farms are going a step further by growing produce for food banks, not just donating food that can't be sold, but making this market a part of their production plan.

Take the Volunteer Farm in the Shenandoah foothills of Virginia. The volunteers here – 2,300 showed up last year – will grow 40 acres of vegetables this year exclusively for more than 430 food banks in 9 cities and 25 counties. Bob Blair, a former Federal Emergency Management Agency employee who felt he was called "to grow food for the needy," started the farm five years ago. Volunteers from mostly schools, fraternities and sororities, and church groups (the majority of volunteers are under 18) are the hands that keep the food bank trucks full.

And, of course, we can't forget about our own PEAS farm here in Missoula, Montana, as Envirovore continues to report on, which last year grew 18 tons of produce for the Missoula Food Bank – an example of how a farm, university program, and local non-profit organization can tend to the soil together while tending to local hunger issues.

Farms dedicated to food banks may be few and far between, but they're sprouting a new season of social change – working models that need our support.

Source: The Washington Post

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.