Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) proposes a three-year project to purchase and distribute $4,160,086.70 of Iowa grown & produced foods to underserved communities. The goal is to build a sustainable program to increase access to local food and improve supply chain resiliency by building partnerships with local producers, socially disadvantaged farmers, and underserved communities.
To achieve this goal, IDALS will partner with Iowa Valley RC&D, Practical Farmers of Iowa, ISU Extension and Outreach, Iowa’s Food Hub Managers Working Group (FHMWG), Iowa Food Bank Association (IFBA) and the Meskwaki Nation as highlighted below.
- IDALS plans to work with 17 distribution partners from Iowa’s FHMWG, IFBA and Meskwaki Nation to strategically implement the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program to build the capacity for strong local food purchasing and distribution networks in Iowa. Three additional grassroots organizations supporting Socially Disadvantaged Producers in capacity building efforts will also be in close partnership with the network being established within Iowa’s LFPA implementation.
- Each year distributors create a distribution plan to show growth in purchasing, distribution partnerships and food access to currently underserved areas with the most need. Plans are evaluated on a rubric that measures growth in all these areas with the focus on purchases from socially disadvantaged producers. This additional time, funding and focus will more than double the number of socially disadvantaged producers selling products into this program.
- We will continue to work in all 99 counties as we build the framework for long, sustainable partnerships beyond this program.