Farms Together
Nourishing Farmers & Communities Across California
Farms Together, a pioneering initiative developed by the California Association of Food Banks (CAFB), Fresh Approach (FA), and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), coordinates the collection of fresh produce from small and mid-scale family and BIPOC farmers to provide nourishing, local food to be distributed to California families in need, while opening up new sales channels for the farmers.
With financial support from the USDA Local Food Purchasing Assistance (LFPA) Program, administered through the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), Farms Together is poised to make a significant impact. By engaging the local food system at the community level, Farms Together is creating new linkages between farms, food hubs and aggregators, and community food distributors like food banks.
1,927,643 lbs
produce and other farm goods distributed through food banks
308 Farmers
growing fresh fruits and vegetables
for local communities
$4,777,820
invested in farmers & local food businesses across California
*Data accumulated from project launch in 2023
THE PROJECT AT A GLANCE
Before Farms Together came to be, its first iteration, and ultimately its inspiration, came from the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic: this source of funding allowed Fresh Approach to partner with Pie Ranch and other regional farm aggregators to coordinate the collection of fresh fruits and vegetables from surrounding farms , to then box and distribute to communities in need.
By the summer of 2020, nearly 3,000 boxes of fresh produce went out to families in need each week.
In 2022, California received $88 million to be used over a 3 year period from the USDA for their LFPA project, and thus Farms Together was formally created. LFPA addressed many of the concerns from the Farmers to Families Food Box Program by prioritizing sourcing from as many small, socially disadvantaged family farms (BIPOC, women-owned) as possible; removing lowest price bidding; settling eligibility requirements that support local food systems; and, rewarding the diversity of farmers as part of the supply chains.
At its core, Farms Together involves recruiting food hubs and farmers to directly purchase and aggregate fruits and vegetables from farmers and then box and distribute the produce to communities in need via local food banks and community based organizations.
CAFB handles the administrative components of the grant deliverables, while CAFF supports the farmers with compliance and permitting with the county and state agriculture and health departments, and we [Fresh Approach] manage the relationships of the vendors (both farmers and food hubs) and application process.
“The Farms Together project greatly impacted our farm financially. We were able to maintain paying our employees a fair wage. It also helped with the farm maintenance, like buying seed and transplants. All together, our farms and farmers have made nearly $200k from this project. We’ve also been able to bring organic produce to families in need. Usually around areas where families in need live, there is no market with organic produce. It is a great feeling to be able to provide organic food for families, especially children.”
Cecilia Cengiz, Yeyi Organics
OUR IMPACT
Since 2023…
- 1,927,643 lbs of produce and other farm goods such as beans, dried goods has made it to food insecure individuals and families across the state
- 1,606,369 meals prepared through the donated produce
- $4,777,820 has been spent with farmers and local food businesses in the state of California
- 308 farmers are involved in the program, including 219 who identify as socially disadvantaged
- We have distributed products through 33 receiving organizations, which includes school districts, churches, food banks within CAFB’s network, food pantries, and other local community food distributors.
Building resiliency by investing in small family farms AND re-imagining long-term hunger relief models is central to the long term goals of Farms Together: we believe that more equitable food systems are rooted in creating network capacity among historically underserved farms and new sales channels. While this project is funded through the end of 2025, we hope to have it continue beyond this period of time to nourish communities across the state of California.
