Community Food Projects (CFP)
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Competitive grants to fight food insecurity by building self-reliant community food systems. A direct fit for a rural coalition linking pantries, farms, and logistics.
04 // The Case for Investment
Fund food security the way we fund every other critical sector.
No one would run the power grid on bake sales. The infrastructure that feeds a county deserves the same layered federal, state, and local investment as the infrastructure that powers it, connects it, and defends it.
Nationally, tens of millions of Americans live in food-insecure households, and the burden falls hardest on rural counties like ours. Yet community food systems run largely on donated hours, donated food, and year-to-year uncertainty.
GCFSC advocates for durable, multi-level public funding for community food infrastructure — treated not as discretionary charity, but as the resilience investment it demonstrably is. The mechanisms already exist for other sectors. The argument here is simply that Sector 02 belongs on the same footing.
A county that cannot feed its people in a crisis is not resilient — no matter how hardened its other systems are.
The grant streams this argument targets
These are existing federal programs. The Coalition's position is that community food networks are eligible, fundable resilience infrastructure within each.
Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA)
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service
Funds the purchase of food from local and regional producers for distribution to underserved communities — exactly the buy-local-feed-local model GCFSC already runs.
Building Resilient Infrastructure & Communities (BRIC)
FEMA
Pre-disaster mitigation funding. Cold storage, backup power, and distribution capacity are resilience assets when a storm or shock severs the supply chain.
A specific ask at each level
F
Federal
Name community food networks as eligible resilience infrastructure within existing grant streams (CFP, LFPA, and FEMA BRIC), and fund cold-chain and last-mile capacity in rural counties.
S
State
Sustain multi-year New York State investment in food rescue, local farm purchasing (Nourish NY), and cold-storage capacity so rural counties are not rebuilding capability from zero each budget cycle.
L
Local
Provide county and municipal operating support for the pantries, volunteers, and delivery logistics that constitute the last mile of the food system — the mile that matters most in a crisis.