For those of you wondering how else you can reduce the amount of food waste we create outside the home, here’s an idea (and a nice read): start an end-of-the-day farmers’ market produce collection. Margaret Gifford of Chapel Hill, N.C., has done that to great effect, with her Carrboro Farmers’ Market Farmer Foodshare.
Many farmers’ markets have such services and for good reason. Some of the healthy, local goods on offer usually goes unsold at markets. Everyone can’t sell out of everything! That’s why collecting and ferrying these items to those in need is such a valuable service.
Yes, as the article mentions, most farmers’ compost their unsold produce. That’s great, but not as beneficial as feeding hungry people.
If you live near a farmers’ market–and you probably do–try to find out if a similar recovery program exists there. If not, starting something like the Carrboro Farmers’ Market Farmer Foodshare wouldn’t take too much time. Obviously it’s hard work, but it would bear fruit almost immediately.
Does your market already have such a service? Let me know…
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We run an organization in Nashville called Good Food for Good People that picks up the “waste” Monday through Friday and sorts it between what’s good and what goes to compost. We take the good food to local organizations that distribute it to those in need. We’ll use the compost next year for community garden efforts.
We’re actually a finalist for a grant to help expand this program. http://www.markhammarkofdistinction.com and vote for Hands on Nashville if you want to help us out.
Thanks so much for the highlight of the Carrboro Farmers Market Farmer FoodShare program — and for what you are doing to help reduce food waste.
The program is actually the easiest volunteer effort I have ever done. I’m almost embarrassed to admit this. Doing good should be hard, right?
1. I work off calories every time I go. (I used to pay a pilates guy a bunch of money to give me a much less effective work out.)
2. I make tons of new friends – from the volunteers to the farmers to the shoppers who donate or just give a friendly wave and smile
3. I can take a tax deduction on the mileage (if I get that organized at the end of the year).
4. No matter how tired I feel going into a Wednesday or a Saturday market, I ALWAYS feel awesome after doing the program. There is nothing like seeing a cornucopia of vegetables, fruits and witnessing the genuine, heartfelt generosity of these farmers, to make you realize there is a whole lot of good in this world!
5. And (dirty little secret) it only takes at MOST two hours to do. So easy, I’m almost embarrassed to admit it!
http://www.thelemonlady.blogspot.com
Not sure if our markets are larger here in California, but it usually takes about 3-4 hours to collect, haul and distribute. Making friends and following up takes the longest. 🙂
Well, I moved to NC from CA & NYC — and most recently used to live in Palo Alto, SF and Los Altos…The SF market is larger than the one I collect from currently in NC, but Palo Alto’s market is much smaller.
So…I guess the time commitment issues are really around the size of the market, the amount of food donated (or raised by the shoppers through donations/purchasing during market) and the amount of time you want to donate to the effort to communicate it at market, etc and raise money for the purchases.
I don’t handle our state farmers’ market, but that one moves a ridiculous amount of food, around a million pounds of food a year and the gleaners in that market get in and out of there in around an hour.
The time commitment really depends on the design of the program as much as on the size of the market.
Actually, the folks who go in and collect from the NC state farmers market are the good folks from the IFFS who run this blog! (So, they would know for sure how long it takes!)
Thanks for sharing your insight, Margaret.
One thing, though: the people who run this blog are me, myself and I, and none of them are affiliated with IFFS. But I am a big fan of their work, and I bet their logo on the sidebar fooled you into thinking it’s affiliated with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.