Dara Bloom, PhD

This project will build a statewide Collaborative to connect local food systems and early childhood partners for the purposes of value chain coordination. The Collaborative will include Early Care and Education sites, including Head Start Centers, family child care homes, and independent child care centers, as well as local farmers, Cooperative Extension agents, and non-profits representing local agriculture. These teams will explore best practices in local food procurement.

The goal of this statewide project is to help the 1300+ small-scale independent meat producers in North Carolina (avg. head of beef processed annually is <15 and pork <30, NCC 2021 Niche Meat Survey) adapt profitably throughout and post-COVID by developing, expanding, and coordinating direct-to-consumer market opportunities for new and existing meat producers. This project will ensure meat producers have the tools, marketing, pricing, and processing capacity, and the know-how to take advantage of the increased direct-to-consumer market demand and expanded processing services that also comes as a result of COVID.

Agriculture is the leading industry in many rural communities in North Carolina, including Bladen, Columbus, and Robeson Counties, despite declining numbers of farming operations and food access points. At the same time, food insecurity rates can be high in these rural areas and associated with chronic disease and poor health outcomes within the community. Many strategies for addressing food insecurity include supplemental cash and emergency food assistance programs. We would like to ask the questions: Could community-led food system infrastructure development compliment these food assistance programs in addressing food insecurity? Could supporting farm capacity, a farmer cooperative, and local food market diversification increase healthy food access points in the community? What strengths do existing community leaders and assets bring to the table and what is needed to build place-based strategies for resilient economic development and healthier communities? To answer these questions, we propose an inclusive, community-led process of food system evaluation, planning, and farmer capacity building with direction from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and NC Cooperative Extension in coordination with the 3-county region??????????????????s community stakeholders and leaders.

County-based institutions, like senior centers, have the capacity to increase access to local food products and expand market opportunities for local farmers. We propose to facilitate six county-based teams to build farm-to-institution pathways for local food sourced through local intermediaries (food hub, aggregator, farmer group). The project activities would include the following: create a county local food campaign, assess farmer readiness to sell to the institution, provide a baseline procurement report to the institution, provide a summer supply chain apprentice and marketing assistance to the local food intermediary, work with food policy councils to explore food procurement policy shifts, and facilitate information sharing and networking among stakeholders of the six county teams.

This grant to the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) will 1)-increase our collective capacity in farm to school through infrastructure support of the Farm to School Coalition of NC (F2SCNC??????????????????currently co-led by the Department of Instruction and the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services), and 2)-will resource 4H/Cooperative Extension/CEFS-based trainings and technical assistance in farm to school efforts for local practitioners across the state. As part of this work, a NC farm to school award will be developed and implemented, bringing visibility and recognition to model efforts while gathering data and best practices in the process; and statewide conferences and regional trainings will support increased knowledge sharing on school gardening and cooking with children, farm and farmer connections and local procurement, and equity practices in food systems work. Support of the network of state-level stakeholders and agencies who are dedicated to farm to school, as well as the networking, resourcing, and support of daily practitioners in schools, increases our collective action and commitment to farm to school policies and practices that increase knowledge, opportunities, health, and wellness for children and the local communities in which they thrive.

The purpose of the SNAP-Education grant delivered by the Steps to Health team is to deliver nutrition and physical activity education to limited resource audience at the individual level and provide multi-level strategies/interventions to promote policy, systems, and environmental change across North Carolina, with 100 counties potentially receiving high levels of intervention.

A majority of children under the age of six years old are enrolled in child care programs, where they consume a significant portion of their daily meals. It is essential that meals and snacks provided meet children??????????????????s daily nutritional requirements for normal growth, development, and maintenance of healthy body weight. However, research shows that child care meals and snacks do not adequately meet nutritional requirements. The Solid Rock Community Kitchen will address this issue by utilizing a central kitchen to prepare and deliver healthy meals to 10 local child care centers. The goals of the kitchen are to improve meal quality for young children, reduce workload on child care providers, provide a source of local economic development, and build community involvement. We propose to conduct a disciplined evaluation of the Solid Rock Community Kitchen to better understand best practices and disseminate this model to other communities across the state.

ABSTRACT Childcare Outdoor Learning Environments as Active Food Systems: Effectiveness of the Preventing Obesity by Design (POD) Gardening Component Long-term project goals: 1) To improve the health trajectory of Americans by increasing physical activity (PA) and consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables among vulnerable preschoolers attending U.S childcare centers, and 2) To use research findings to further support the Preventing Obesity by Design (POD), gardening component to influence state policy makers with compelling arguments to promote and create hands-on gardening opportunities at more than 120,000 licensed U.S. childcare centers. Supporting objectives 1. Research. Using a waitlist/control group, randomized controlled trial (RCT) research design, assess the impact of the Preventing Obesity by Design (POD) Gardening Component intervention on 300 children, 4-5 years old, enrolled in 15 childcare centers in Wake County, North Carolina. Assess the impact on: a) children??????????????????s physical activity; b) FV consumption; c) FV liking; and d) FV knowledge. 2. Education. a) Disseminate the POD Education Modules: Gardening Component, created for the North Carolina Community College System, embedded into community college courses (early childhood, culinary arts, movement education, horticulture, landscape design and construction) as defined in the NC Combined Course Library; b) Suggest potential Module adaptations to serve additional community college approved courses; c) Disseminate modules via community college/higher education faculty professional organizations; d) Identify early adopters and provide technical assistance for implementation; e) Transfer modules to organizations replicating POD in South Carolina, Texas (see letters of support), and other states as appropriate. 3. Extension. Disseminate information, tools, and resources to support parents, community leaders, technical assistance providers, extension agents, community college instructors, and public health professionals to implement evidence-based, children??????????????????s FV gardening and other health-promoting activities to impact childcare outdoor quality at local level. a) Disseminate FV gardening tools developed by the project; b) Develop online resources for delivery via eXtension and other distance/higher education systems, professional and collaborators?????????????????? networks, Farm-to-Preschool, and related state level and national organizations; c) Train extension agents, technical assistance providers, and early childhood educators to deliver children??????????????????s FV gardening/micro-farming technical assistance and trainings to create an evidence-based community of practice; d) Offer Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) cooking series activities in Year 4 & Year 5. Need. Preventing obesity from an early age has become a major public health priority in the developed world. Strong evidence supports beneficial effects of various child obesity prevention intervention programs, however, the majority of these programs are targeted to children aged six to 12 years (Waters et al., 2014). The effectiveness of intervention programs for preschool children (four to five years of age) is relatively understudied. Since a large number of preschoolers are enrolled into regulated childcare facilities where they spend a majority of their waking hours, childcare intervention programs are crucial in childhood obesity prevention.

EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems: Cultivating a Profitable Local Food Industry Cluster through Entrepreneurial and Business Support, Infrastructure Development, Training, Leadership Development and Capacity Building Project Objectives Regional Food Assessment: Conduct a regional food assessment to identify gaps in supply chain, local food infrastructure, technical knowledge, marketing and agritourism opportunities. Train-the-Trainers: Provide training support and curriculum resources for regional food, farming and business leaders to expand knowledge and expertise on a variety of county and region-specific local food system topics. Product Development and Distribution Support: Support food and farming business product development and distribution with the Center for Agricultural and Food Entrepreneurship (CAFE). Collaboration with Community Colleges and Western Carolina University Faculty and Staff: Assist culinary, agriculture and business continuing education and curriculum programs as they seek to add course materials, guest lectures, and site visits to food and farming businesses. Provide Advanced Business and Programmatic Consulting: Development of advanced business and programmatic consulting framework providing up to 40 hours of commodity, valuechain specific, and marketing assistance to food and farming businesses. Provide infrastructure development support. Grants and low interest loans are available to fund farmer, business and organizational infrastructure such as cold storage and processing equipment. Support the development of new, direct, wholesale/retail, and institutional markets. Making connections with colleges, schools, hospitals and wholesale markets through site visits and grower-buyer meetings. Support the development of Agritourism resources in the region. How can we connect agritourism to the growing regional recreational trends? We will support existing farms in their efforts to add tourism and assess promotional opportunities region wide. Career Ladder - Paid Internships: Provide career ladder opportunities for community college, and university students and others in the region by providing paid apprenticeship opportunities. Assist with land access with WNC FarmLink. As farmers are seeking ways to retire and keep their land in production, FarmLink helps to connect new farmers with existing farms aiding in lease agreements and more.

The backbone of the FSRU will continue on: replicated plots of farming systems managed with farm-scale equipment. Within that context, new research questions have emerged. This research involves measuring outcomes never before measured or nesting new subplots within the experimental framework. From the social sciences, we can ask how these systems interact with sustainability in the real world. How do farmers weigh the choices in selecting farming practices from these various systems? What factors play roles in farming practices that cannot be captured in an experimental protocol? In this proposal, we have attracted researchers new to CEFS who have fresh ideas on relating this experiment to the sustainability issues of our time. Most of these questions were never envisioned when the experiment was first designed. From research on which farming systems emit the most greenhouse gases, to work on how land tenure affects the ability of farmers to adopt sustainable practices, the new research projects run the gamut of disciplines.