Healthy, Local Food For All: Joining SNAP Education and Agroecology

The local food movement is still going strong, but has not reached into every demographic. Lack of grocery stores in many communities, combined with limited public transportation makes access to locally produced fresh fruits and vegetable nearly impossible for some of the most vulnerable populations. Despite efforts, participation remains low in programs that encourage the use of federal nutrition assistance benefits to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets.  Gardening education offered through the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in Maricopa County has been largely focused on Master Gardener training with some classes offered, at cost, to the general public.  Until recently, there was no formal partnership between the traditional Extension horticulture programs and federally funded nutrition education programs, such as the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed), which are administered by Family, Consumer and Health Science Extension programs and other community awardees. Since federal fiscal year (FY) 2011, SNAP participants can use their benefits to buy food-producing plants and seeds at approved merchant sites. And in FY2013, funding was provided through the SNAP-Education program to hire a full-time program garden coordinator to work with SNAP-eligible K-8 schools, emergency food pantries and subsidized housing projects.  This new program provides gardening support to eligible sites through training, technical support, curricula, seeds, and a tool-lending program.  The following year, in FY2014, as the SNAP-Ed program progressed, funding was made available to hire a full-time local food access program coordinator to increase the availability of locally produced fruits and vegetables available to SNAP participants.  To increase the amount of local food being grown in Arizona, a program was implemented that supports new growers for local markets to become viable, sustainable businesses. To empower people that are interested in supporting community food projects, a series of workshops was held that explored local food systems, community organizing, fundraising and navigating policy, rules and regulations.