Founded in 1992, The Food Trust works with neighborhoods, institutions, retailers, farmers, and policymakers across the country to ensure delicious, nutritious food for all. Backed by three decades of research and evaluation, our holistic, community-centered approach to nutrition security weaves together three core programming elements — access, affordability and education — as well as a focus on advocating for public policy solutions.
Headquartered in Philadelphia, TFT works locally and nationally to further its mission of improving access to healthy food and nutrition education. Over the years, the organization has become a regional and national leader in developing innovative strategies to improve nutrition security, increase healthy food access and prevent diet-related disease. TFT’s core programs include: operating the region’s largest network of farmers markets; running fruit and vegetable incentive programs; providing training and technical assistance for the Healthy Corner Store Initiative; providing nutrition education to children and adults in schools and community sites; and advocating for policy change at the local, state and national levels.
Recognizing that low-income communities are challenged most by food insecurity, TFT gears its programs to community residents most impacted by food, health and economic injustices — Black, Brown, Indigenous, poor and marginalized residents, with a focus on families with children. TFT provides direct service in: PA (Philadelphia, Reading, Pittsburgh, Central PA); NJ (Camden, Trenton); and San Jose, California, and Food Trust programs serve more than 800,000 annually.
Local food procurement by institutions, especially schools, is a critical component of creating a just and thriving local food system; one which supports small to mid-sized local family farmers, children and communities. Incorporating fresh and minimally processed locally grown food into school meals is a practice widely valued and supported by farmers, school food service directors and parents, yet there are numerous barriers that prevent local farmers from tapping into this market. The Food Trust and the PA Farm to School Network (pafarmtoschool.org) aim to develop and advocate for a long-term solution to these challenges, which includes the implementation of a Local Food Purchasing Incentive (LFPI).
In recent years, over a dozen states have established their own state-funded LFPI which provides direct reimbursement to child nutrition programs in schools and early care and education (ECE) settings to offset the costs of buying local foods. Here in PA, the Department of Agriculture administers the PA Farm to School Grant as part of the PA Farm Bill. These state grant funds can be used by schools and ECEs to purchase local food, but the funding is minimal and is not on a per meal basis. In order to make substantial shifts toward high-quality locally-grown foods in schools, an LFPI in PA is necessary. The goal of this project is to analyze and distill information from a variety of sources which will provide quantitative and qualitative data to help inform the advocacy strategies that will result in implementing an LFPI for PA by 2025.
This project will result in a report summarizing data collected from the following sources:
- Stakeholder interviews with leaders from organizations that engage in policy advocacy activities in Pennsylvania and who value or play a role in increasing local food in schools (e.g., farm bureau, school food service associations, parent teacher associations, conservation groups)
- Presentations from LFPI program administrators and evaluators (via a series of recorded webinars and reports) from the states that have already implemented an LFPI program
- Quantitative and qualitative data collected from the implementation of the one-time federal funds called “Local Food for Schools”, administered by the PA Department of Agriculture in 2024
- Interviews with state agency staff and PA government officials who can share insight into the potential legislative processes and current political opportunities that could benefit or challenge the implementation of an LFPI in PA.
Fall 2023 - Fall 2024 - one-time Local Food for Schools federal funds dispersed by the PA Department of Agriculture to schools for local purchasing and data collected for analysis
January 2024 - The PA legislative cycle begins, identification of key stakeholders, legislators and issue trends begin
March 2024 (tentative) - the Governor’s budget is released and priority issues for the current legislative cycle are identified, stakeholder interviews continue
June 2024 - report completed and used to inform the strategic plan to advocate for an LFPI in PA
July - August 2024 - report will be used in discussions with a variety of state agency staff and legislators to prepare for the 2025 legislative session. State agency directors submit their own budget and program proposals to the Governor for the 2025 budget.
