Connecting Food, Farmers, & Families
April 2021
On average, one hundred pounds of fresh, locally grown produce is leftover following a standard market day at Sandpoint Farmers’ Market. Having been picked fresh and carefully prepared just for market day, much of this produce is highly perishable and cannot easily be transported back to the farm, repackaged, and returned to market the following week. Without a simple system to get it into the hands of those who could benefit most from it, much of this perfect produce is disposed of, composted, or fed to livestock.
Thanks to a grant that Kaniksu Land Trust secured from the Land Trust Alliance, that excess food will now benefit local families in need. The grant will fund a “market liaison” position at Bonner Community Food Bank who will pick up and transport excess produce from the twice weekly market and deliver it to the food bank.
Through this new partnership, Kaniksu Land Trust, Sandpoint Farmers’ Market, and Bonner Community Food Bank hope to achieve three primary outcomes: put excess food from Farmers' Market on the tables of families in need, increase participation in the SNAP and Double Up programs, and support local sustainable agriculture.
The Bonner Community Food Bank currently serves approximately 1,800 households monthly and is constantly seeking sources of fresh, local produce.
"The food is there, and the recipients are waiting. We just needed a mechanism to bridge the two," said KLT’s Regan Plumb.
The new Food Bank staff person will also help build awareness and participation in the SNAP and Double UP nutrition benefit programs. These two essential but underutilized community resources allow access to fresh, local produce at the Farmers’ Market for those who may not otherwise be able to afford it, while also putting much needed cash in the pockets of local farmers.
SNAP is Idaho's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, sometimes known as food stamps, which is meant to help families pay for healthy food. SNAP expenditures at the market totaled approximately $2,300 in 2019 and also in 2020 in spite of a shortened market season due to COVID-19.
The Double Up Food Bucks program, which is fueled by the Fair Food Network, provides participants in the SNAP program with a one-to-one match on the purchase of healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables. Participation totaled $1,296 in 2019, the first year that it was available in Sandpoint, and $1,914 in 2020.
Both of these subsidized programs serve to simultaneously support local farmers and community members in need.
KLT is dedicated to the concept of community conservation. We believe that the well-being of our lands is intrinsically linked with the health of the communities which rely upon them, and that we cannot fully serve one without also serving the other.
The communities that KLT serves in rural north Idaho and northwest Montana include a high percentage of economically stressed residents who struggle with challenges such as food security, chronic disease, and lack of access to amenities. KLT’s community programming has grown out of an awareness of these struggles, and the desire to build strong and resilient communities that are equipped to withstand changes to our world. Our private lands conservation efforts make a vital contribution to this effort through the protection of working lands, clean water, and healthy forests, but contributions to the strength and resilience of our local food economy does as well.
Just as the preservation of working farms and ranches is vital to the organization’s missional work, so too is the food that is produced on those lands and the livelihoods of those who dedicate their time to growing it. By investing in food, we are investing in our community, its future, and the lands on which our lives depend.
