Food banks and local food growing (#journal)

From commodity surplus to food justice: food banks and local agriculture in the United States

Food banks across the United States have increasingly engaged in diverse gleaning, gardening, and farming activities. Some gardening programs seek to build poor communities’ capacity to meet more of their own food needs, signalling new roles for food banks. This article reports the results of a national survey and in-depth case studies of the ways in which food banks are engaging in local agriculture and how this influences food banks’ roles in community food systems. The patterns it reveals reflect broader tensions in debates about hunger relief and food security.