The Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council (COIC) and the High Desert Food & Farm Alliance (HDFFA) announce the recent award of nearly $200,000 in grant funding from the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant and USDA’s Local Food Promotion Program to support the local food system and farmers.
These grant projects will improve the purchasing of local food by restaurants, universities and other businesses and expand consumer choice and access to fresh and healthy food. Working with Oregon State University and the local OSU Extension office, this grant will also improve farmer assistance programs to help grow their operations.
This project will improve rural livelihoods for our communities and small to mid‐sized farmers. “Increasing market opportunities for local food producers is a sound investment in America’s rural economies, while also increasing access to healthy food for our nation’s families,” states Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a recent news release. ”
Consumer demand for local, healthy food is skyrocketing in schools, hospitals and wholesalers. These grant opportunities allow farmers and ranchers to meet this demand, and feed our nation’s kids.”
As an example, the average cost of a meal in Central Oregon is $2.87 according to Feeding America; if 10% of that food was local, farmers would get up to $0.28/meal. Multiply this by 3 meals a day for the entire year and Deschutes County alone would see an investment $51 million dollars in the local food system.
“This could be as simple as eating a local egg for breakfast, lettuce on your sandwich and carrots in your stir fry,” states Meiko Lunetta, HDFFA Program Coordinator.
For those who may not be able to afford the local food premium, businesses could make up for it by providing local food in their menus or through the current school districts Farm‐to‐School programs.
For rural areas like Crook County, the benefits from these grant funds can have a large impact. This past summer the Crook County Small Farm Alliance and HDFFA initiated the Crooked River Open Pasture (C.R.O.P) on‐farm events which brought hundreds of people out to the farm. Kids played with goats and parents bought vegetables, soaps and jams.
“The interaction was energetic and inspiring,” says Lunetta, “these grant funds will allow us to purchase promotional materials and provide support for two more years hopefully making this an annual event in both Crook and Jefferson counties”.
In addition to the on‐farm events, these grants will provide COIC and HDFFA the opportunity to work with local businesses to develop group purchasing programs for community supported agriculture (CSA) shares; provide farmer chef events to improve relationships and purchasing; better understand the needs of farmers and ranchers to then provide specific technical support; and help define policies that improve purchasing by public agencies.
To become involved or to learn more, contact Katrina Van Dis, COIC Community and Economic Development Program Administrator at kvandis@coic.org, 541‐504‐3307.
