Farms to Food Banks: Connecting Local Foods With Local People

Keeping it Fresh

What do you do when you have a surplus of edible produce?

What if you have healthy 2-grade produce that you can’t sell in retail markets?

Contact Kentucky Association of Food Banks (KAFB) and provide healthy produce for your fellow Kentuckians. Through its Farm to Food Banks program, KAFB provides fresh produce for hungry Kentuckians, reduces financial losses for local farmers, AND reduces unnecessary spoilage of healthy foods.

How it Works:

1) Maximum prices are set each season in order to pay farmers fair prices (through UK Cooperative Extension Services), which helps local farmers recoup losses for produce that would have gone to waste.

2) Produce auction & cooperative managers oversee purchase and delivery of the produce to food banks, OR farmers can make direct sales to KAFB.

3) Kentucky Food Banks work with partners to distribute the produce to local families / individuals in need!

Each year 1 in 7 Kentuckians are reached by KAFB, last year alone the Farms to Food Banks program was able to distribute 792,225 pounds of produce to hungry Kentuckians in 108 counties! It was also able to provide 202 local producers with an average of $677.82!

In 2011 the types of produce included: apples, beats, broccoli, cabbage, cantaloupe, cucumbers, eggplants, green beans, greens, okra, onions, peaches, peas, peppers, potatoes, romaine lettuce, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, watermelon, winter squash, yellow squash, and zucchini.

Who to Contact:

Tamara Sandberg, Executive Director

Kentucky Association of Food Banks

859-358-6719

Tamara@kafb.org