When the pandemic arrived in March of 2020, school closures dealt a blow to our routines in countless ways. There were the obvious ones — what does online education look like? — and other ones that took a while to play out.
One point of impact that may not have registered on the community radar is the blow the pandemic dealt to the local farms that had been marking steady increases in the amount of produce they provided to our local school districts. For nearly 10 years, the momentum in the amount of local food purchased by our school districts has continued to grow, supported by a commitment from the schools, an infusion of local, state and national grants, and guided by Wello’s Brown County Farm to School Task Force.
Yet as local school districts transitioned into a new role of emergency food delivery, providing meals to thousands of families that rely on school meals for essential daily calories and nutrients, their orders at local farms slowed and then all but halted. This was because new conditions required that meals be more shelf-stable, easier to pack, deliver and transport. Local produce, which requires more processing time such as washing and cutting, and comes at a higher cost, took a back seat, and local farmers unfortunately took a hit.
Despite this challenging trend, there are signs that one positive lasting impact of COVID-19 will be a renewed recognition of how important our local food producers are to the health and well-being of our community. In fact, this period may well mark a watershed moment when we truly start to prioritize local farmers as we mobilize to meet the food needs in our community, especially in groups most in need of support.
Several examples of this work stand out.
The first is Wello’s work on the recent Wisconsin Partnership Program COVID-19 Response Grant that enhanced safety operations at our four area farmers markets and engaged our local Latinx community in the markets’ Double-Your-Bucks produce program with pandemic-specific resources. Through this grant, Wello was able to purchase more than $9,000 in local produce from area farms to distribute to Latinx families hard-hit by the pandemic with the support of community partners at Casa ALBA Melanie, St. Paul Lutheran Church and Oral Health Partnership’s clinic within the Howe Community Resource Center. Pandemic Double-Your-Bucks that families could spend on fruits and vegetables at the markets were also provided to further amplify local producers’ ability to fulfill the increasing hunger needs.
Paired with support from the Brown County United Way, which helped expand program reach, and the ongoing support of the Double-Your-Bucks program by Hospital Sisters Health Systems, local farmers enjoyed a broader and more diverse range of customers than ever before. According to Leah Weyker, executive director of the Military Market Business District, attendance at her market has increased by more than 200 visitors over last year’s attendance numbers. The Market on Military also has seen over a 100{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed} increase in EBT (Foodshare) usage at their market, demonstrating the continued community need for win/win programs like EBT at the farmers market to insure food security while simultaneously supporting farmers. This is especially true as pandemic-related unemployment has increased families’ needs for support to address hunger, like EBT, across Brown County and Wisconsin.
Further, despite the current challenges facing local produce purchasing mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Farm to School Task Force continues a commitment of working together to make sure local produce remains on the menu in our schools. Thanks to a national USDA grant secured by Wello, food service directors in nine school districts across Brown County are able to work during this unusual year with local farms on a project to plan, plant and grow new items for use in school meals. This funding provides support to continue strategy sessions that look to the future of local purchasing in schools. While these efforts cannot completely replace lost sales, they do help to address an immediate gap while maintaining relationships and innovating processes — like growing more kid-sized veggies and exploring new local processing options — to strengthen local purchasing in the future.
A vibrant and connected local farming community is essential to the health and well-being of our region. When we prioritize the purchase of local food to feed our community, we not only increase access to the freshest and healthiest possible food, we also invest dollars in area farms. We also challenge local institutions beyond our schools to see where and how they can work with local farmers.
Let’s work together to keep this momentum going, ensuring we continue to have a healthy, sustainable food system through and post-pandemic.
Beth Heller is the strategic partnership manager for Wello, a nonprofit network in Brown County championing well-being because healthy, well people build strong, resilient communities. Share your thoughts, questions and topic suggestions by emailing [email protected].
