Senate Farm Bill Hearing, "Healthy Food Initiatives, Local Production and Nutrition"

Vilsack: Local food is "one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture;" Downloads of witness testimony...
Washington, DC: On Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held a Farm Bill hearing on "Healthy Food Initiatives, Local Production and Nutrition," with six witnesses testifying, including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The hearing comes on the heels of the release of USDA's new report to Congress about local and regional food initiatives, the digital document "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass," which was the subject of a national virtual conversation from the White House on Monday.

Committee Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) opened the hearing by noting that locally grown foods are helping create new market opportunities for farmers and agriculture producers across the country, while also helping to provide families greater access to healthy and nutritious foods. Witnesses during their testimony covered everything from the impact of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign to farm to institution sourcing; the importance of federal nutrition programs including SNAP for combating hunger; the growing demand for farmers markets; to the importance of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, as well the benefits of local food initiatives in a tough economy, including the healthy impact on jobs.

Stabenow said that food hubs and local food systems are a ‘win-win’ for agriculture, and helping to re-introduce agriculture to a younger generation of up-and-coming farmers and ranchers.

“We also know how important local food systems have been in this difficult economy. Food policy councils, farmers markets, co-ops, and food hubs are bringing farmers together with low-income school districts, food banks, and grocers in food deserts to provide fruits, vegetables and other healthy products to families in need,” Stabenow said.

During his testimony, Sec. Vilsack cited the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, and hailed local food as "one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture." Direct consumer sales have doubled in the past decade to reach close to $5 billion in 2008, he said.

"More than ever, consumers are interested in where their food comes from and are seeking out a connection to the men and women who put food on our tables," Vilsack said. "Buyers in every sector of the food system have increased local food purchases, and conversations between farmers and consumers are taking place every day in every part of the country."

Still, USDA does not have a hard definition for "local," and will decline to create a legal definition for "local," Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said during the White House virtual conversation. She is the architect of Know Your Farmer, and said defining the term "local" would limit efforts to build vibrant food systems that best serve all constituencies, from producers and growers to consumers.

Witnesses included Ron McCormick, Senior Director of Local Sourcing & Sustainable Agriculture for Walmart, the largest private-sector partner for the Let's Move! campaign. McCormick discussed the company's partnership with Let's Move!, and noted that Walmart is now sourcing nearly 11% of its produce "locally" for its more than 3,800 outlets in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. In some states, more than 50% of Walmart's sales are through the use of federal SNAP benefits, also known as Food Stamps, according to the company.

Also testifying: Jody Hardin, a fifth-generation family farmer from Grady, Arkansas, and co-founder of the Foodshed Farm All Arkansas Basket-A-Month program, which is based at Hardin Farm in Grady; Anne Goodman, President and CEO of Cleveland Foodbank; Dan Carmody, President, Eastern Market Corporation, of Detroit, MI, which runs one of the largest urban farmers markets in the US, as well as other food access projects; and John Weidman, Deputy Executive Director, Food Trust, Philadelphia, PA. The Food Trust is a non-profit that works on healthy food access issues, including farm to school sourcing and bringing healthy foods into "underserved" communities.

The testimony...

Sec. Tom Vilsack, Testimony: DOWNLOAD HERE

Dan Carmody, Eastern Market Corp, Testimony: DOWNLOAD HERE

Ron McCormick, Walmart, Testimony: DOWNLOAD HERE
Jody Hardin, Arkansas, Farmer, Testimony: DOWNLOAD HERE

Anne Goodman, Cleveland Food Bank, Testimony:  DOWNLOAD HERE
John Weidman, Food Trust, Testimony:  DOWNLOAD HERE

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Video: Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Virtual Conversation At The White House

At the White House on Monday, Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives Sam Kass joined USDA's live virtual conversation about local foods, led by Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan and Jon Carson, the White House Director of Public Engagement, and followed by a madly-tweeting live audience. The event spotlighted USDA's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative and newly unveiled digital tool The Compass, an online multi-media narrative with stories, pictures, video and a geospatial map that chronicles USDA’s support for local and regional food systems across the nation.

Kass dropped by to chat about First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign and 1600 Penn's ultrafamous local food project: The Kitchen Garden. He discussed the importance of local food systems with about 60 leaders invited from across the US, including farmers, tech whizzes, and non-profit leaders.

The afternoon event, according Carson, seemed to be a record-breaker for White House Tweetups, with more people following along than for any previous livestream.

"We've done Tweetups on everything to womens' issues to environmental issues and I don't think we've ever had this level of participation before," Carson said. Check #KYF2 on Twitter for a continuation of the conversation.

Today: White House Hosts Virtual Conversation About Local And Regional Food Systems

Public is invited to join Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan to discuss USDA's new digital "Compass"...
The public is invited today to join Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan as she hosts a virtual conversation from the White House featuring USDA's new digital tool, the "Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Compass." The event will be livestreamed between 2:30 PM ET--4:00 PM ET at whitehous.gov/live, and questions can be submitted via Twitter to @USDA using the hashtag #KYF2. (Above: The front page of the Compass)

The Compass, unveiled last week, is an online multi-media narrative with stories, pictures and video about USDA’s support for local and regional food systems, and includes an interactive map of USDA-supported activities in all 50 states. Users can navigate USDA resources for local and regional foods; "meet" farmers, ranchers, businesses and communities in each state that are participating in local food chains; and learn about local and regional food projects across the country.

The Compass gives users the "10,000-foot view" of USDA's many programs, components, and business opportunities across the 17 agencies and additional offices that make up the Department, according to Merrigan. She will be joined today at the White House by guests invited from across the US, including farmers, food entrepreneurs, buyers, retailers, policy analysts, economic developers, tech designers and "many others who are engaged in local and regional food systems," USDA said. (Above: This photo of the President with dairy cows and their handlers is included in the Compass)

Merrigan is the architect of the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, which launched in September of 2009. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Merrigan unveiled the Compass last Wednesday during a live webinar. Watch the video:



*Photos from USDA

USDA Unveils New Digital Project On Wednesday: "Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Compass"

Agriculture Secretaries will host live webinar to discuss huge interactive digital document...
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan will take to the internet on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate the debut of USDA's new Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Compass. They'll be chatting with the public during a live webinar about USDA's huge digital project, an interactive web-based tool/document that includes maps, studies, data sets, and stories from farmers, ranchers, food producers and communities that highlight USDA's support for local and regional food projects. (Above: Vilsack rings a cowbell to open USDA's farmers market)

The Compass is the "10,000-foot view" of USDA's many programs, components, and business opportunities across the 17 agencies and additional offices that make up the Department, according to Merrigan (l), who described the still-embargoed project as "dense, rich, visually appealing, with lots of embedded videos."  It's also doing double duty as a report to Congress about the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food initiative, launched in September, 2009.

"I don't think anyone has seen the full extent of USDA investments, the 10,000-foot view of local and regional foods and what USDA has been doing to help that trend out," Merrigan said.

Users will be able to access stories and data that illustrate local and regional food efforts in communities across the US.  All of the information in the new Compass has previously been available from USDA, Merrigan said, but never in one digital location that allows for cross-referencing of things such as grant programs and services. 

Led by Merrigan, the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food initiative was designed as a way to better focus already-existing USDA resources on local and regional food systems, and to boost public awareness about the importance of supporting local farmers and producers. A recent study found that 85% of consumers want their grocery stores to carry local foods, Merrigan said, and she hopes the Compass will help inspire more efforts to make this a reality.

"This will generate a lot of excitement, a lot of interest around local food and community," she said.

Jobs and Congress...
The Compass also serves as a mandatory report to Congress, required under a conference agreement from the negotiations during the FY2012 appropriations bill, which charges USDA with delineating the parameters of the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food initiative. The message for Congress about USDA's local/regional efforts through KYF is one word, Merrigan said: "Jobs."

"A study that we put out last year found that for every $1 million in revenue from local food systems, 13 jobs are created, compared to 3 in a non-focused operation," Merrigan said.

"This Compass will show all Members of Congress in every state that they have a piece of the rock, that they have local farmers, contributing to the economy."

She added that the local operations featured in the Compass are "very diversified, growing a lot of crops, livestock, and doing other value-added activities."

Printed hard copies of the Compass will be sent to Capitol Hill, but otherwise USDA has no plans to release the project other than online. Users will be able to print out whatever they'd like from the documents, however.

The public is invited to join Merrigan and Vilsack for the free, live webinar on Wednesday at 2:00 PM ET, which will be streamed at www.usda.gov/live. Questions can be submitted via Twitter, to @USDA using the hashtag #KYF2. In 2009, to launch KYF,  Merrigan visited Tree and Leaf Farm in Virginia, run by husband and wife team Georgia O'Neal and Zachariah Lester.  They will join the Secretaries during the webinar.  The couple was previously farming on leased land, and now own their own farm, thanks to USDA help.

The Compass will be updated with new stories and information later in the Spring, such as slaughter capacity, Merrigan said, but the next few months will be spent helping users understand and use the tool. USDA will host another event next week spotlighting the Compass, with a "National Virtual Conversation" from the White House on Monday, March 5th.

Access to the Compass and interactive map as well as additional information will be available on February 29 at www.usda.gov.

*Top photo courtesy of USDA, second by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama