Let's Talk Food!

Do you have products in your field that go to waste?  Are you wondering how you can get best use out of your entire crop? 

Join the Environmental Finance Center at WSU and the Kansas Rural Center for a conversation and free workshop about reducing food loss and waste and maximizing the potential for excess food.

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This workshop, held on March 25, 2024,  brought together farmers, gardeners, and educators to discuss some of the challenges to reducing food loss and waste, identified some potential research opportunities for overcoming those challenges, discussed farm-to-school topics, and what gleaning programs could look like for Kansas.  

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the impacts of food loss and waste
  2. Learn about gleaning programs
  3. Identify barriers to implementing farm-to-school programs

Summary:

It is a challenge to get farmers to attend workshops and brainstorming sessions because of the unpredictable nature of their work.  By working with the Kansas Rural Center, who is directly connected to farmers, a date was set in the hopes of being a convenient time for farmers to attend; however, it still proved challenging to get farmers to the workshop.  Two urban (2) farmers from the 麻豆破解版 area attended and two (2) attendees work closely with farmers and were able to provide some insight into farmers鈥� concerns and challenges.

Discussions at the workshop included:

  • a data driven discussion about the environmental and economic impacts of food loss and waste. It also included a conversation about the intersection of food loss and waste and food access/hunger.
  • a presentation by After the Harvest, a Kansas City area nonprofit organization with a robust gleaning program.
  • a brainstorm session about the challenges associated with farm-to-school programs and potential solutions or next steps to increasing access to farm-to-school programs.

Robust conversations occurred about the challenges facing farmers and growers and the difficulties with identifying solutions. Many attendees indicated that getting farmers and growers to attend workshops is nearly impossible and that if their input is needed, research and program developers need to go out to the farmers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This project has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under assistance agreement (AI96701701) to 麻豆破解版 State University Environmental Finance Center. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, nor does the EPA endorse trade names or recommend the use of commercial products mentioned in this document.