San Mateo County Food System Alliance Projects and Needs (April 2011)
Background
The San Mateo County Food System Alliance (FSA), a collaborative of farmers,
fishermen, farmers’ market managers, public health professionals, environmental
advocates, and residents, seek to promote and support a sustainable food system that is
economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just. This group meets monthly
and is facilitated by Ag Innovations Network. The FSA formed in 2006 and works in four
priority areas: facilitating the connection between local producers and institutional
buyers, encouraging garden-based education in all schools, supporting the development
of irrigation ponds to address water shortages, and increasing the county’s food stamp
participation rate. Some current projects include developing and disseminating a
brochure that describes the benefits of garden-based education
(http://aginnovations.org/fsa_uploads/uploads/call-to-action_GBL_final.pdf); creating a
call-to-action for residents to support the development of irrigation ponds; conducting
research with schools and hospitals to assess whether they procure local or county
grown1 produce, their barriers and interest in this; and implementing a pilot project with
Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) to work with two school districts to
procure local produce in two school districts.
Project 1: Alternative Mechanism for Distributing San Mateo County Grown Produce into
County Institutions
Over the past 2 years, the FSA conducted numerous activities that have provided
valuable information about the benefits and challenges of creating a new distribution
system for produce grown in the county. Throughout this time, many stakeholders have
expressed interest in creating an alternative distribution mechanism. Two years ago, the
FSA convened a “speed dating” event where representatives from 9 farms and 7
institutions learned about institutions’ produce needs and the produce available in the
county. Last year, the FSA assessed hospitals’ progress with one of their goals: to
procure at least 10% of their produce locally. All but one of the five hospitals in the
county is struggling to meet this goal. In addition, the FSA conducted a brief survey in
spring 2010 and learned that many growers are interested in a farm to community
enterprise.
The FSA consulted experts who have experience forming growers’ collaboratives at the
UC Davis Small Farm Program, USDA Rural Development Office, California Center for
Cooperative Development, and CAFF. Each recommended a feasibility study to
determine the economic viability of aggregating produce in San Mateo County. The San
Mateo County Health System hired a grant writer who submitted a proposal for a
feasibility study and business plan to the USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grant.
Unfortunately we have not yet been successful in obtaining funds for this project despite
proposals to the USDA and several other donors.
1
For the purpose of this document, local is defined as San Mateo County grown. While one of
the goals of the FSA is to link county growers with county institutional buyers, we’re open to
working with institutions to develop a definition of local that is most appropriate for them.
Institutions might include San Mateo County grown produce as the gold standard, within 100 to
200 miles as the next level, and 400 miles or within the boundaries of the state of California as
the next level.
Our needs include: 1) understanding lessons learned from other distribution models that
ensure profitability for growers, affordability for institutional buyers, and the delivery of
healthy, fresh produce to students, patients, and residents; 2) linking the FSA to funding
sources; and 3) determining the most appropriate next steps to move this concept
forward while the FSA continues to seek funding for a feasibility study and business
plan.
Project 2: Exploring Innovative Ways to Fund and Support School Gardens
As of August 2009, 63% of San Mateo County public schools had a garden. School
gardens in San Mateo County and throughout the U.S. face significant funding
challenges. One recent idea that we’d like to explore is whether restaurants that receive
an As Fresh As It Gets award, or recognition from the San Mateo County Convention
and Visitor’s Bureau signifying that their restaurant uses San Mateo County grown
produce, could donate a percentage of their proceeds to fund school gardens. Key
questions such as what amount of revenue might be generated, how these funds would
be distributed, and whether award recipients would be interested in this concept, need to
first be answered.
In addition, some school districts and counties in the U.S. have a designated school
garden coordinator. We believe that there is tremendous value in having one person
coordinate school gardens across a district/county as they could encourage sharing
resources and networking, coordinate workshops, and submit joint applications for
grants. We’d like to explore this idea and ways to fund school garden-based educators
based in either a school district or the county.
Project 3: Assisting Pie Ranch and HEAL with Evaluating their Programs
We are currently assisting two organizations, Pie Ranch, a Sustainable Educational
Farm that Educates Urban Youth, and the HEAL Project (Health Environment Agriculture
Learning). Pie Ranch offers a farmer apprenticeship program, opportunities for high
school youth to participate in a week long session during their spring break, and longer
educational and interactive sessions for Bay area high school youth. We are assisting
them with refining their program objectives and developing evaluation tools. The HEAL
project is an interactive garden-based learning program that incorporates CA academic
standards into the science based curriculum. They offer garden-based education
classes to 2nd through 5th graders during the school year, a noontime sports program
where youth play organized sports and games during recess, and a summer school
garden program for students. In 2009-2010, they reached nearly 1000 students, all of
whom they interacted with multiple times. Both organizations will provide more
information about their evaluation needs when they submit a summary to the Advisory
Council.
For more information about these projects, please visit
http://aginnovations.org/alliances/sanmateo/ or contact Jennifer Gross, Community
Health Planner, Health Policy and Planning Division, San Mateo County Health System
at jgross@co.sanmateo.ca.us or (650) 573-2319.