World Wildlife Fund to join Salvation Farms-facilitated panel at Vermont Farm to Plate Gathering

Salvation Farms will raise the profile of food loss on-farms across America at the Vermont Farm to Plate Annual Gathering in Killington on November 1^st during a workshop titled “What If We Ate What We Grew?” This session will include presentations from and a dialogue with individuals engaged in on-farm food loss research, including representatives from the World Wildlife Fund and North Carolina State University.

On-farm food loss occurs when edible food is left unpicked or is picked but not sold or donated. In Vermont, it is estimated that more than seven thousand tons of edible produce remain on farms annually. Nationally, it is estimated that more than ten million tons of edible crops remain on farms every year.

This Farm to Plate Gathering session will highlight research and findings from different regions of the country and in the production of different crops. Recommendations to adapt the food system to respond when edible food exists on farms without markets will also be discussed.

If edible food that currently remains on Vermont farms were used to build the state’s food system, it could help advance many Vermont Farm to Plate goals, like increasing total local food consumption, institutional use of local foods, food literacy, processing and distribution infrastructure, local food availability and food access, and nutrient management.

To learn about the Vermont Farm to Plate Gathering, visit www.vtfarmtoplate.com/get-connected/network-gathering.

Salvation Farms is a Morrisville-based nonprofit with a mission to build increased resilience in Vermont's food system through agricultural surplus management. Salvation Farms has served among a group of advisors to a World Wildlife Fund-directed on-farm food loss research project and co-leads a national working group with the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic focused on building infrastructure for farm level food loss. Salvation Farms’ food loss on Vermont farms research was recently published in partnership with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. To learn more about Salvation Farms, visit www.salvationfarms.org.