During the acme of the growing season , many Georgia farmers discover themselves with one truckload too many of tomatoes or peppers . Sometimes that food is given away to friends and sometimes it ’s sold at a deep discount , but other time it ’s just tossed into a compost bin .
Feeding America , the land ’s leading domestic hunger charity , has partner withGeorgia MarketMaker , Georgia sodbuster , theGeorgia Food Bank Associationand theUniversity of Georgia Center for Agribusiness and Economic Developmentto hydrant this potentially wasted nutrient supply .
This coalescency is presently recruiting Georgia farmers for a Farm to Food Bank pilot program programme that will connect them to local food banks via technology , such as a vane portal or smartphone app . Farmers will be able to expend the technology to ease communicating with local nutrient banks that can use their excess green goods .
“ By using the connection in the MarketMaker organisation and developing newfangled applied science to streamline the process , we go for to make donate much easier for Georgia producer , ” said Sharon P. Kane , an economist with UGA ’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development .
While solid food bank building have long been a true source of shelf - stable staples and canned good for home in demand , it has always been a challenge to offer families with unused fruit and veggie , concord to Danah Craft , executive manager of the Georgia Food Bank Association . The Farm to Food Bank program will help provide fresh produce for food bank and their clients . It will also help granger measure the amount of food for thought they have donate and its note value .
Donating through the Farm to Food Bank program also streamlines the garden truck donation process .
“ I call them and let them know what we had , and they arranged a time to peck it up , ” tell Phil Jennings IV , co - proprietor of Nature Crisp vegetable farm in Soperton , Ga.
Jennings and his father , farm co - owner Phillip Jennings III , sign up to be part of the Farm to Food Bank program in mid - January at the Southeastern Fruit and Vegetable Growers Conference . They made their first donation of 300 head oflettuceto America ’s Second harvest time of Coastal Georgia , a Savannah , Ga.-based food for thought bank .
Nature Crisp ’s contribution was the first made since the Farm to Food Bank pilot kicked off a few weeks ago .
Nature Crisp grows specialty veg for eating place in Savannah , Ga. , and other area of the Southeast . Most of what they produce needs to be eaten within a few days of being harvested to be at its best , and there are always perfectly good vegetables that finish up going to waste .
“ When we had excess produce , we would normally give it to Quaker and employees for their families , fertilize it to livestock , or but befuddle it off , ” Jennings says . “ My father and I had talk about finding a place to donate the superfluous food for thought we had on hand , and it was that same week when we were told about the program down in Savannah . Of naturally we loved the conception and jumped on control panel . ”
Feeding America chose Georgia for this pilot program because of the commonwealth ’s growing season and its live web of food bank building and networks of Farmer .
“ We were chosen because we have a long growing season and there is a country association of intellectual nourishment banks already in place here , ” Craft suppose . “ It was the combining of those two elements that led them to choose Georgia , along with the really strong farming community of interests here . ”
Georgia ’s seven large regional food for thought depository financial institution are networked through the Georgia Food Bank Association . Each regional intellectual nourishment bank distributes groceries to dozens of small main intellectual nourishment buttery or agencies that serve their local communities .
Both large - exfoliation and small - scale vegetable producers who conceive they ’ll have even a trivial superfluous garden truck to donate during the saltation of 2013 are participating in the pilot syllabus . Farmer will provide feedback about how the technology and the Farm to Food Bank programme is wreak .
