As a three-year USDA grant to fund the Rhody Feeding Rhody Alliance wraps up this month, the program can boast of hefty numbers with significant impact, including:
- $514,049 in purchases from at least 50 R.I. farmers, fishers, other food producers
- 256,500 lbs of produce gleaned
- 195,800 lbs of seafood distributed
- 63 food security agencies distributing 3,000-plus boxes of produce.
In October 2022, the Rhode Island Food Policy Council won a $498K grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Local Food Promotion Program to launch Rhody Feed Rhody. Partnering with Farm Fresh RI, Southside Community Land Trust, and the Commercial Fisheries Center of RI, RIFPC formed the Rhody Feeding Rhody Alliance. The group’s aim: to build sustainable market channels between local farmers and fishers and Rhode Island residents in need of fresh, local, culturally appropriate food.
It was a simple concept born in the early days of the COVID pandemic as a way to help Rhode Island farmers and fishers as well as residents struggling with food insecurity. The project built on a successful planning grant awarded by USDA in 2020 to pilot the program on a smaller scale.
Thanks to Rhody Feeding Rhody, the state’s local emergency feeding system “has become a larger, more reliable wholesale market for local producers and harvesters while also becoming more resilient to supply chain shocks from public health emergencies and climate-related disasters,” says Rachel Newman Greene, RIFPC associate director for network.
“This chapter of the Alliance has come to a close, but the call for connecting food insecure Rhode Islanders to the local foods they want and need is as loud as ever” Greene says. “Stay tuned for new and exciting news about the Alliance’s next steps to engage partners across the state in meeting the food system needs of this moment.”