Resources for grantees
Farm to Table: Building Local and Regional Food Systems (SARE brief)
Discover a wealth of educational materials for farmers, ranchers, ag professionals, community organizers and others who are striving to reconfigure the nation’s food system so more value stays in food-producing communities.
The content on this page is available as a topic brief (PDF download from the SARE website), Building Local and Regional Food Systems.
Federal Food Assistance Programs (SNAP/FINI)
SNAP and Farmers Markets: https://www.fns.usda.gov/ebt/snap-and-farmers-markets
Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Grant Program: https://nifa.usda.gov/program/food-insecurity-nutrition-incentive-fini-grant-program
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed): https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-education-snap-ed
Overview of federal food assistance programs and funding opportunities.
Food Safety Resources including GAP Certification
USDA provides guidance and resources for producers on GAP, HACCP, and other on farm food safety programs.
Food Systems Leadership Development
The Food Systems Leadership Network (a Wallace Center National Community of Practice) connects individuals and staff of non-profit, community-based organizations through its online, interactive platform where members can access a variety of opportunities and services to support professional development and organizational capacity.
http://www.wallacecenter.org/communitybasedfoodsystems/
Connect with colleagues around the country through a network of peer to peer support and professional development.
Local and Regional Food Directories and Maps
AMS’s Marketing Services Division (MSD) maintains four separate online directories of local/regional food enterprises, covering Farmers Markets, CSAs, Food Hubs and On-Farm Markets. These entries are based on voluntary submissions by market/food enterprise managers.
Market or food enterprise managers who wish to add listings to the directories or update current listings may do so by following the instructions here.
USDA also provides many maps and mapping applications that may be useful in gathering information about local/regional food activities, demographics, and neighborhood characteristics. See what types of data and information are available at your fingertips.
Local Food Economics website
Hosted by Colorado State University, with temporary funding from USDA/AMS and USDA/NIFA, and in collaboration with eXtension, the localfoodeconomics.com site is designed to provide a one-stop platform for cutting-edge information on local food research findings, benchmark data, and economic impact assessments.
The site was originally created in 2016 to showcase a new economic assessment tool for local food systems entitled The Economics of Local Food Systems: A Toolkit to Guide Community Discussions, Assessments and Choices. This seven-chapter document, co-authored by more than a dozen leading researchers and consultants on local food systems, was developed to enhance the capacity of community planners and stakeholders to make more accurate and credible measurements of economic activity accruing from local food system investments.
Designed to be usable by individuals at all levels of technical sophistication, the document provides guidance on how to:
- Engage community members in discussions on local food system priorities
- Determine appropriate and meaningful study parameters
- Find relevant secondary data and engage in cost-effective primary data collection
- Understand and produce meaningful economic multiplier and impact data on local food systems with input/output software
Since the site was launched, its scope has expanded beyond Toolkit-related economic impact materials to incorporate numerous aspects of current local/regional food research, including:
- Benchmarks for Local Food Data
- Tools for Farmers Market Data Collection, Analyses and Reporting
- Farm-to-School Research
- Community Supported Agriculture Research
- Rural-Urban Linkages
‘Local Foods, Local Places’ program and toolkit
The Local Foods, Local Places (LFLP) program, hosted by the Environmental Protection Service, released a toolkit in 2017 that incorporated findings from three rounds of the technical assistance grants it provides to communities in support of local food enterprises development. The toolkit includes step-by-step instructions for community-led workshops that allow local officials, community groups, businesses and citizens to set priorities and action steps for developing the potential of their local food system. Access the toolkit here.
Communities receiving LFLP support have worked on a diverse range of projects such as:Communities receiving LFLP support have worked on a diverse range of projects such as:
- Opening year-round, downtown markets featuring foods from local farmers.
- Planning cooperative grocery stores to help revitalize small-town main streets.
- Creating centrally located community kitchens or food hubs to aggregate and market local foods.
- Starting business incubators to help entrepreneurs launch food-related businesses on main streets.
- Making it easier for people to walk or bicycle to farmers markets and local restaurants.
- Helping schoolchildren to grow their own food, and making healthy local food accessible to families, including via SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits.
- Developing community gardens in walkable, transit-accessible places.
A selection of Community Action Plans is available at https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/local-regional/food-sector/lflp-cap.
Local Food Systems Library (USDA)
Local Food Systems Resources Directory
The USDA National Agricultural Library has compiled a listing of local food related reports and resources. These resources may be especially helpful for pre-award research and proposal writing.
MarketSizer® and HubSizer® Toolsite by New Venture Advisors
MarketSizer and HubSizer are tools for food system planners. It uses data from public and private sources to calculate unmet demand for local food at the state and county level. With a few clicks you can estimate the potential of the market in your area for local meat, dairy, poultry & eggs and fruits & vegetables.