Surplus Solutions

Most on-farm surplus is due to the undesirable physical appearance of the fruit or vegetable or its marketability, this impacting the economics of removing the product from the field. The producer/farmer must constantly ask themselves whether the product is in a cosmetic condition that the “consumer/market” will purchase it, or if it is the right size and shape for the mechanical equipment to process it into a manufactured product.  The size and appearance attributes of fresh produce generate an abundance of surplus that will never make it to market. Farmers and growers are also often left with surplus when they can’t compete with the going market price; sometimes it is just cheaper for a Vermont food store to stock California grown lettuce than to purchase it from a neighboring farm.  I challenge you to think about what external costs aren’t represented in the cheaper head of California lettuce.

In Vermont, our agriculture industry is small in scale but big in diversity. This provides us the opportunity, as organizers, to build relationship-based services and systems for the capture, distribution and utilization of our state’s agricultural surplus foods that have the ability to engage a lot of people.  Gleaning is one of the best examples we have in the nation that demonstrates surplus management programming for capturing available food resources direct from farms.

Why is managing our state’s agricultural surplus resources important to the strength of Vermont? Resilience; it is that simple.  Vermont is rich in natural resources.  We are blessed with people who hold tight to and value the knowledge of how to be responsible stewards of our land-based resources. Utilizing what we have at hand and depending on our own resourcefulness before depending on someone else’s hard work, is inherent in most Vermonters and in those who have gravitated to live in Vermont from elsewhere.   Capturing and utilizing an available resource will increase our resilience and strength while building community resource networks.

Let me paint a little picture for you.

We currently have a 14% food insecurity rate in Vermont, meaning that 14% of all households in this state don’t have enough food or have inadequate access to support healthy active lives. The Vermont Foodbank distributed more than 8 million pounds of food in 2011. It would be interesting to know exactly how much is actually provided to all hungry Vermont residents when you add up the hundreds of food shelves and meal sites around the state.

What about our schools? We have 364 schools enrolled in the school lunch program serving roughly 51,631 meals daily. Now how much food is needed in our hospitals, nursing homes, senior meal sites and Meals on Wheels programs?  What about meals served to inmates in prison facilities in Vermont?  We are excited that many of these questions will soon be answered by NOFA-VT research work currently underway. 

If Vermont, by Salvation Farms’ estimates, has an excess of 2 million pounds of surplus fruits and vegetables and 10 million pounds of beef, shouldn’t we be working to create smart mechanisms to capture this food, making it accessible to the many recipients who are reliant on the sites listed above? Where does the food that these institutions depend on daily come from? Does our dependency on these sources of food build resilience in Vermont?  Does our investment in these foods and food sources build our economy or invest in the agricultural heritage of our state?

Inserted Map: Estimated average annual daily truck traffic for Interstate and major US Highways (1998)

Think of Irene, a scenario that is beginning to symbolize our need to take prudent and intentional steps to develop a new way of living on this planet and within our communities. Think of the towns that were shut off for days from the rest of our state due to washed out bridges and roads. The people of these towns did what was needed to make it through until repairs were made to bring in needed food, fuel and supplies.  They relied on each other.  They relied on the resources at hand, the resources and generosity shared by another, a neighbor. 

Now consider for a moment that it wasn’t a town shut off but it was our entire state. How long will we be able to provide for our needs?  Do we have systems established and the support structures to ensure that we can take care of ourselves if absolutely necessary?  Does it not make sense that as we build the strength of our land-based economy that we also build an in-state agricultural surplus management organization so that we have the ability to serve more of the citizens in all demographics throughout Vermont?

That is what Salvation Farms strives to be for Vermont. We know that we cannot make our vision of capturing and making available Vermont’s farm surplus come to fruition alone.  We are excited about the plethora of possibilities to build creative partnerships to move our work, our state and its citizens forward to a place where we are all able to enjoy Vermont grown food, and where we value our farms, farmers, the power of food and, most importantly, the richness that the land is capable of providing to each and every one of us every day.

Until next time – be well & eat well.

Theresa Snow

p.s. I look forward to sharing with you in our coming posts our road map to creating Vermont’s agricultural surplus management systems.  Feel free to contact us any time with your thoughts and please visit our “how to help” page to learn what you can do to support our work.