West Virginia University is leading one of 50 projects as part of a nationwide effort to increase farmland availability to underserved populations, while also helping producers obtain working capital and means of food distribution.
The WVU Institute for Community and Rural Health was awarded a five-year, $8.5 million cooperative agreement grant for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Increasing Land Access Program, funded by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Titled “Working Lands of Central Appalachia,” the WVU project covers West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. Pairing with 11 state, regional and national organizations, the group will address agricultural workforce training, farm-to-institution markets and food as medicine. Their work will focus on assisting underserved veterans, people with limited resources, and beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers.
“By engaging state institutions to assess demands for local food procurement and community benefit programs, this project supports healthier food systems in the community to address social determinants of health,” said Megan Govindan, ICRH research associate, who leads the regional effort.
Opening farmlands and job opportunities
“The goal of increasing land access is to be able to support our agricultural future by utilizing existing markets and finding sources of capital, whether that be policy focused or otherwise,” Govindan explained.
To increase the availability of farmlands, Govindan and her team will conduct audits of public and private holdings.
Existing public farmlands include those owned by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture and institutions such as WVU and community hospitals. Input from landowners will help determine how to increase access and production at these sites.
Private farmlands include heirs’ property, acreage which was passed down without a will or clear deed. The descendants may have the right to use the land and may have difficulties in obtaining federal benefits. As private lands become available to those interested in farming or increasing efficiencies, Govindan expects to see matchmaking opportunities for agricultural careers and training.
“West Virginia leads the nation in small, family-owned farms,” she said. “Supporting agricultural communities is critical to increasing food access.”
Creating farm-to-institution pathways
Project partners plan to build on the support of government policies that require certain institutions to include fresh food in their meal plans and another that mandates nonprofit hospitals complete community health needs assessments. Using that data, they will create an anchor collaborative to manage local food procurement and community benefit provisions.
“As we’re engaging those hospitals through community benefit, it opens the opportunity for all nonprofits to be able to engage and accelerate their institutional investment,” Govindan said. “We’ll have a standardized language of what those activities are so they can be invested in a uniform way and then replicated and scaled across the region.”
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Categories: Pennsylvania, Education, General