SNAP HEALTHY FOOD INCENTIVES MAY LOWER HEALTH COSTS

A number of studies have shown that creating incentives for SNAP recipients to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables increases their consumption of healthy foods significantly. The Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) in Massachusetts offered SNAP recipients a 30-cent reimbursement for every dollar spent on targeted fruits and vegetables, and resulted in a 25% increase in fruit and vegetable consumption over the control group. The pilot also increased healthy food consumption regardless of whether or not the participants lived in a food desert – SNAP recipients made an effort to find stores, even those further away, that offered fresh fruits and vegetables. These healthy foods help manage weight and reduce obesity and other diseases, which could lead to savings in Medicaid and Medicare. In 2012, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future stated, “improving [the] diets of low-income Americans through SNAP pricing incentives [is] a public health priority. USDA recently launched a grant program, funded through the Farm Bill, and Wholesome Waves’ double-value coupon program for SNAP recipients expanded to 21 states, serving more than 40,000 families.

Source: Huffington Post, 12/10/14, SNAP Healthy Foods

New webinar on creating food projects with existing infrastructure

Talk Is Cheap … and Efficient:
Facilitating value chain development without costly new infrastructure
 
Thurs Jan 22
3:30p Eastern, 12:30p Pacific
 
Register now! FREE! ---->  http://bit.ly/1HMsqCE
*******************************************************************************
 
Let's face it: food hubs are sexy! So are other Good Food infrastructure
projects, such as region-scaled meat processing plants.
 
And for good reason: these businesses are often filling gaps or bottlenecks in
regional and local food systems.
 
However, sometimes it's not a LACK of infrastructure that leads to
bottlenecks; it is incomplete or inefficient USE of the infrastructure that
stymies the system.
 
"Value Chain Coordinators" are people who work to connect the dots in a value
chain. They ensure the right people, goods and resources connect with each
other. Most often value chain coordinators work outside day-to-day business
operations, a vantage point that offers a unique perspective on the optimal
solutions in a regional market.
 
Join us for this expanded webinar diving deep into the approaches people
across the country are taking to improve the food system without costly new
infrastructure.
 
Ann Karlen, Fair Food; Todd Erling, Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development
Corp.; Steve Warshawer, La Montanita Coop; Lauren Gwin, Niche Meat Processors
Assistance Network; Debra Tropp, USDA
 
Moderator: Jim Barham, USDA
 
Register now! --- http://bit.ly/1HMsqCE

FALLING OFF THE SNAP CLIFF

When families participating in SNAP receive even modest increases in earnings, their benefits get reduced disproportionately. When benefits are reduced too quickly, the resulting net loss in the family’s budget is like falling off a cliff. And, like falling off a real cliff, it hurts. In a recent report on Philadelphia families receiving SNAP, Children’s Health Watch found that compared to families with young children that consistently received SNAP:

·    Families with young children whose SNAP benefit had been reduced were 34% more likely to be food insecure; 32% more likely to be marginally food secure; and 56% more likely to forgo seeking medical care, prescriptions, or oral health care because of an inability to afford care for a family member

·    Young children in families that lost SNAP benefits were 186% more likely to have fair or poor oral health and their families were 101% more likely to forgo seeking medical care, prescriptions, or oral health care for their young child because of inability to pay and 61% more likely to forgo medical care, prescriptions, or oral health care for household members other than the young child because of inability to pay.

Source: Children’s Health Watch, 12/12/14, SNAP Cliff

North Country Junior Iron Chef competition

Farm to School Webinars coming up

USDA’s 2015 Farm to School webinar series is scheduled, and available for viewing: http://www.fns.usda.gov/farmtoschool/videos-and-webinars. While originally designed for USDA grantees, these trainings are open to the public this year. Please feel free to join any of the sessions that might be of interest to you, and also feel free to share this series with your networks.

1. Farm to School Planning and Building a Team, January 15, 2:00 pm 
2. Setting Goals and Establishing an Evaluation Baseline, January 28, 2:00 pm
3. Finding and Buying Local Foods, February 5, 2:00 pm
4. Farm to School Menu Planning, February 19, 2:00 pm
5. Food Safety, March 5, 2:00 pm
6. Promoting Your Farm to School Program, March 19, 2:00 pm
7. School Gardening, April 2, 2:00 pm
8. Curriculum Integration, April 16, 2:00 pm
9. Program Sustainability, April 30, 2:00 pm
10. Evaluating Your Program, May 13, 2:00 pm
11. Tying it All Together and Digging In, May 28, 2:00 pm

Webinar this week for staff or farmer training programs

The National Incubator Farm Training Initiative (NIFTI) invites you to participate in a webinar for the staff of land-based beginning farmer training programs. This webinar will focus on record keeping for incubator farms and farmers. Learn what other projects are tracking and how they're tracking it, and get insight into why gathering data on the farm is somehow never as easy as we think it'll be. We will have presentations from Stephen Paddock at the Vermont Small Business Development Center and Nikki Seibert at Lowcountry Local First. There will be ample time at the end for questions.

To find out more and register for this event, click here: http://nesfp.org/nifti/Webinar11

Title: Recordkeeping for Incubator Farms and Farmers

Date: Thursday, January 8, 2015

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM EST

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing important information about joining the Webinar. Please read this information carefully!

Quick registration link: https://tufts.webex.com/tufts/j.php?RGID=rdb190300de7647b397f26219c1775677

The National Incubator Farm Training Initiative is a program of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, which has been training successful new farmers since 1998.

Garden project grant deadline this week

Sow It Forward is the grants and partnership program of Kitchen Gardeners International. The grant is for nonprofit causes or organizations interested in starting or expanding food garden projects that are of general benefit to their community.  Past grantees include school gardens, community gardens, food bank gardens, library gardens, senior gardens, prison gardens and homeless shelter gardens among others.

For our 2015 round of giving, we expect to offer 100 full grants and roughly 60 partial grants. A full grant has a value $500 and normally consists of a cash grant of $300-400 with the remaining $100-$200 taking the form of seeds and gift certificates for garden supplies and KGI's online garden planner. The partial grant normally has a value of $325 and consists of a $300 cash grant and $25 one-year subscription to KGI'sonline garden planner. There are no geographic limitations on what types of food garden projects will be considered.  Past grantees included projects from Portland, Oregon to Pakistan and many places in between. Because of trade restrictions and international shipping fees, garden projects from outside the US will only be eligible for partial grants. 

Deadline is this week!  January 9!  Go here for more information.