Categorías: Todo - nutrition - subsidies - resources - programs

por Beth R hace 10 meses

57

Spotlight Denver - Public

The focus revolves around the agricultural and food support landscape in Denver, CO, highlighting the diverse challenges and opportunities faced by local residents. Key areas of consideration include land consolidation and the implementation of crop rotation to enhance farm productivity, alongside the provision of subsidies and incentives to support aging farmers.

Spotlight Denver - Public

Wiki Resources

Impacted Person: Denver resident

Location: Denver, CO

Impact Area: Food insecurity

Key Insights

Opportunities

Spotlight Denver

Agriculture

Ugly food is more popularized now and can reduce waste

Donation incentives

Paid to not grow

Forward contracting needs

Growing selection incentives

Commodity crops

Financing/investment model for CPGs forces higher prices and growth

Many development grants can require businesses to be one year old (reforming new solutions)

Access to capital and land are main pain points for new/startup producers.

Market access

Small farmers and producers need to know there is a market for their product if they are to grow something new or different than what's subsidized.

Direct to Consumer pathways reduce costs and help natural/organic CPGs reach more consumers

Small scale producers struggle with food safety requirements/certification, preventing distribution contract access

Urban Ag

Small Scale Commercial Gardens

People lack access to affordable space to grow their own food.

Urban agriculture is too small to be a significant production source

Community Gardens

Home Gardens

Farmers/workforce

Farm lobby is strong enough to prevent substantial federal program change

Local Ag

Economics of local production suggest it is not the answer to getting healthy foods to low-income communities. (This flies against many policies/incentives)

Local agriculture only accounts for 50k lbs of 40 million lbs of produce moved by Food Bank of the Rockies each year. 0.125%

Farming culture is preventing optimization of existing farm land

Crop variety limited in CO

Farm subsidies prevent farming variety

Fruit and vegetable production is limited in CO

Labor

Aging farmers; lack of succession plan

Wage increases and more employment is good for the worker, but small scale producers will suffer.

Water and labor are main challenges for producers

Procurement

100% local procurement is not a realistic goal

Private sector procurement relationships are already in place. No room for improvement/change

Military procurement model: under the commissary model

Wholesalers

Wholesalers won't service urban markets if they can't purchase $10k or more in an order

Transportation

First mile and last mile of distribution are the most challenging stages of the food supply chain

Food Hub Aggregator

Food distribution company focused on rural grocers

Having product and location data would solve a lot of the food supply chain's problems

Processing
CO Capabilities

TABR severely limits unlocking CO state funds by requiring excess revenue to be redirected back to citizens

More local processing/packaging infrastructure needed to grow and support local producers

Bring manufacturing/processing back to CO to bolster local food system and create jobs/economic development in rural CO

Major production and processing are centered around population centers. CO will "never" have large scale production/processing due to small population.

Food Support

Charitable Food Model
Infrastructure needs

There is a language divide making it hard to connect with many that need food assistance

Toyota Kaizen Approach: using effective methodologies developmed in the private sector for non-profit improvement

Better mobile infrastructure (trailers, food trucks) needed for pantries to reach communities.

Pantries and charitable food organizations lack sufficient cold storage to support better variety

National/regional/local networks

Weave a connection between city departments and leverage resources with one another

Statewide coordination of charitable food network (Oregon model)

Gov't lacks the necessary relationships to take over full food support role

There are too many overlapping service providers. Reduce and better coordinate.

Make pantries anchor institutions that offer more than food.

Increase/allow access to online grocery options (imperfect foods, misfits, etc.) with SNAP

Online shopping/ordering for pantries created during pandemic allowed for greater choice and better quality boxes for recipients.

Source food from not just distributors, retailers, wholesalers, or restaurants; also source from farms across the region

Inefficient daily inventory checking for FBR member pantries

Increase raw/minimally processed food acquisition & pair with cooking, processing, and training to empower people

Food pantry hours of operation need to match those of the folks who need food support

Quality & Nutrition

Very little surplus in restaurants because margins are thin; food obtained are typically near expiration date but not past

Major food bank supplying pantries with poor quality and unpredictable produce, and too many high sugar/processed items.

Demand exists for unhealthy food from charitable food system

Stigma in use

Reduce stigma by making pantry/food bank experience look and feel like any private sector food experience

Inventory planning challenges

"Charitable Food System is buying food to give away - can't that be done directly by people"

Inventory management systems for management of CFU

Reliance on food waste?

Food bank's reliance on rescued foods impacts ability to provide predictable quality and variety to customers

Pantries lack inventory tracking ability. MetroCaring only tracks items taken by shoppers by weight, not item type.

Lack of data

Labor and cost to scan data is preventing more sophisticated data on food

Lack of shared information, communication, and granular data in supply chain waste; prevents how surplus food could best be repurposed

Root cause of food supply chain messiness is the lack of structure of the data and rare digitization of data

Fragmentation of data maintains the status quo in the food supply chain

School Lunch Funding

Reallocation of school food funds (P-EBT) is a threatening conversation for school food directors

SNAP

[https://wiki.newimpact.care/s/dataseeder/goto/6b56ef0b6cbfcb5d527b169d13f009a6?embed SNAP resources]

SNAP dollar only lasts two weeks

More SNAP users benefits the private sector

Removing the SNAP interview requirement as an temporary emergency COVID practice saw no negative verification changes/impacts (in Oregon).

SNAP outreach funding is underutilized. Media campaign is needed to support SNAP awareness.

SNAP enrollment and verification requirements prevent entry and increase churn/falloff

SNAP benefit limit is too low and creates a barrier to enrollment considering the enrollment requirements

In Douglas County, 70% of food bank attendees were not enrolled in SNAP

Doctors and nurses lack training and tools to increase screening for social and economic barriers in patient visits. Pilots show this could increase cross enrollment.

Resources and support for people experiencing food insecurity are often in disparate places

There is a tech divide - high speed internet, tech skills/literacy, cost - that makes it hard to connect with many that need food assistance

People facing urgent need for emergency help (shelter, food, employment) often have to go to multiple government/social providers for different services

Sign up process limiting participation

Economics
Implementation Requirements

Difficult for emergency food providers to track all necessary data for federal program reimbursement

People need to be educated on the true cost of food. They might pay more for organic and natural foods if they knew the economic, social and environmental benefits included in the cost.

Food is expensive. Minimum wage is low, rent is high and there isn't enough money left for food.

Programs that complement food
Cooking

Nonprofit partnership with culinary schools to create ethic/culture based on cooking practices

The further people have gotten away from the source of food, the less we seem to care about it. Can local ag scale up for more regional use?

In down months (Nov-Apr), institutions can highlight individual items (i.e. carrots) to spread awareness/spark taste for local produce

Food Consumption

Waste
Consumer

Human relations are needed to get adoption of an idea; how do you put the human connection when dealing with the issue of food waste?

Retail

Food supply chain players overstock to be able to answer any call from the next part of the chain, but that leads to waste at each step

Grocers are incentivized to throw food out

Food Banks/Pantries

Corporate Donations

FBR chooses to accept chips to satisfy partner orgs

Food Rescue

Private sector tech/inventory mgmt gains reducing available food rescue supply for pantries

Production

People have improved distribution centers for food, but no one looks up the supply chain

No set standard for measuring food waste

Businesses are incentivized (taxes) to donate older food rather than find a market based solution

Consumer Consumption
Food Options

Convenience Items

School meals

Prepared meals

Raw grocery products

Preparation

Time

Access to kitchen

Middle-income folks cook the most. Leads to best direct to consumer markets.

Knowledge

Distribution

SNAP is a farm subsidy program. Funded by the USDA. Not a nutrition program. Food banks have to fill in the gap of nutritious food.

Most important issue in food insecurity is with children. They lack choice/power and are getting poor quality food and health issues.

Cost

People expect cheap food. The $1 menu has been the same price for years.

Convenience

Hours

Proximity

Cultural Relevance

Using data to understand where to deliver culturally appropriate food

Quality

Absolute hunger isn't the problem; instead, its the inability to feed families nourishing food

Shelf stable, poor quality foods (chips, sodas, etc.) are low risk for grocers to stock b/c distributors supply/stock products for them.

Access

Why can we reach every home to trash pickup but not for food deliver/distribution?

Where people get food
Schools

Public schools can be major leverage points for food insecurity

School lunches are key opportunities to impact 1/3 of child daily food

Fresh, nutritious even if not local is a big win in school lunches

Restaurants

Direct to consumer

Food Trucks

Sit-down dining

Fast Food

Convenience Stores

Convenience store options prevalent in many communities don't offer fresh/healthy items; charge exorbitant prices for key staples

Convenience stores are often major food access points in low income areas

Cheap cornerstores/gas stations change economics and access of unhealthy foods making bad food easier to get AND more expensive that at grocery stores

Grocery Stores

Online delivery services

Co-op

Increase local ownership of urban and rural grocers.

Legal complexities/cost to start a co-op increase risk for non-wealthy entrepreneurs

Large Chain

Small/local specialty stores

Farmers Markets

Butcher shops

Ethnic food stores

Charitable food banks

Policy

Subtopic
Farming
Public benefits

Jobs/Wage

Entrepreneurship
Mentorship
Financing access
Decent wage
Minimum wage
Reliable jobs
Entrepreneurship hurdes
Multiple job
Seasonaility

Land

Consolidation
Aging farmers
Crop rotation
Subsidies/incentives
Farm Land

Healthcare

Prevention vs treatment costs
Obesity
Nutrition
Dietary restrictions
Insurance savings

Housing

Location
Price
Availability

Racial inequity

Education
Income disparities
Access to capital
Criminal Justice
Health outcomes
Food Apartheid
Housing discrimination