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Public Sector: National
Roots of Change is communicating and collaborating directly with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) through three agencies.
Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS)
AMS is the agency tasked with increasing sales by farmers and ranchers using a variety of programs. The Marketing Services Division has a special focus on farmers’ markets and local food marketing. The division issued a Cooperative Agreement and funded the 2009 AMS West Coast Direct Farm Marketing Summit held in Oakland, California July 7-9, 2009. Fourteen USDA senior staff members, including, Ann Wright, Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulation, attended the summit.
The event featured a series of speakers and case studies that illuminated ways to foster foodsheds around metropolitan centers. The high point was the announcement by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom of his Executive Directive, for Healthy and Sustainable Food for San Francisco.
RMA is the government agency tasked with reducing the risks faced by farmers and ranchers through insurance, educational outreach, and research. The Civil Rights and Community Outreach Staff provided two grants to Roots of Change, totaling $300,000 dollars. This money has been passed through to a number of NGO partners working in rural and urban communities and is being used to engage and provide technical assistance to farmers and ranchers who have limited resources, are socially disadvantaged, or traditionally underserved.
Roots of Change is joined with a number of NGOs, foundations and financial intermediaries in meeting with RD in Washington DC around the potential for a Federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative based on the Pennsylvania model. The discussions are about how private capital and philanthropic capital can best be matched with federal money if Congress creates the program, which has been requested by the President.