The Cumberland County Food Security Council is working with partners to identify how our network is using local food to create more food access and nutrition security in our communities. Local food supports nutritious diets, stimulates regional economies, sustains healthy environments and creates strong social connections. Supporting our local farmers, ranchers, and processors builds a strong food system, especially when we make that food available to people living with limited access to enough nourishing food.

We are currently beginning the process to gather important information about local work to inspire the community to join us in our shared efforts to build food security and end hunger. Partners will be receiving a survey which asks you to provide program data about your strategic use of local food from January 1st, 2023 - December 31st, 2023. The data collected will be aggregated to demonstrate our collective impact. This process will help us identify particularly effective practices to feature and share those stories with a larger audience.

Learn more below about each of our identified strategies:

Strategy 1 Land Access: increasing access to land through community gardening, farm-share programs, and other applicable programs.

• Examples: garden access (community gardens, school gardens, home garden etc.) agricultural programs, land trusts, farm collaborative, and other land access programs for food production. 

Strategy 2 Education: providing educational programs to community members, such SNAP-ed nutrition education, farm-to-school, school gardens, and other applicable programs.

• Examples: gardening, cooking education, educational youth program, farmer training programs, and other education programs. 

Strategy 3 Incentive Programs: established programs that assist in access and affordability to receive resources such as local food.  

• ​Examples: farmers market low income access,  discounted farm shares (CSAs etc.), government funded nutrition programs, community resource centers, and other nutrition incentives. 

Strategy 4 Farm to Institution: partnerships that increase access to locally sources food products  

• Examples: school nutrition program (higher education, k-12 et.c), healthcare/hospital facility food service, correctional facility/reentry food service, housing facility food service, processing facility, aggregator/distributor, commercial kitchen (includes shared kitchens), other F21 initiatives. 

Strategy 5 Charitable & Emergency Food Relief: programs and partnerships that provide people experiencing food insecurity with food at no cost.  

• Examples: food pantry (to include school pantries, gleaning initiatives, community meal sites, fresh food tables, charitable food delivery service, and other charitable distribution programs. 

Local Food Action Team:

Jim Hanna- [email protected]  (reach out for any questions regarding this project)
Victoria Forkus- [email protected] (reach out for any questions regarding the survey) 
Ali Mediate- [email protected]
Adele Wise- [email protected]
Theresa Oleksiw
Carrick Gambell

 This survey will be closed on 2/1/2025. 
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