Gardening & Farming: Examining the San Antonio Food Bank’s Farming Effort

Gardening & Farming:

Examining the San Antonio Food Bank’s Farming Effort

By Michael Guerra

Since 1980, the San Antonio Food Bank has served the emergency needs of food insecure residents across 16 counties of Southwest Texas. Known for helping individuals with groceries and meals, the Food Bank sets the table for 120,000 people a week. The groceries and meals are the anchor for the Food Bank’s “food for today” strategy, the first rung of their 3-step effort to move individuals to self-sufficiency.

The Food Bank’s second step up the ladder assists individuals with “food for tomorrow”: helping them enroll in public support programs (SNAP, WIC, etc.), and teaching them all manners of healthy cooking and nutrition. Employing more than 30 people to help individuals navigate public benefits enrollment and more than a dozen registered dieticians and wellness experts, this is the largest effort of any food bank in these two program areas.

The Nutrition, Health and Wellness Team works to promote healthy eating patterns and active lifestyles to improve the well-being of the community. This is done by educating the community through a variety of free classes and by promoting healthy eating through urban gardening and Farmers’ Markets. The Food Bank operates the largest Farmers’ Market Association in the region, conducting as many as 25 markets each month. Food is provided from Food Bank farming initiatives, as well as from local farmers. Individuals can use their Lone Star Card for produce. They can also get their produce purchase doubled by a special incentive program offered by the Food Bank. The markets offer seasonal fruits and vegetables. In addition, the farmers’ markets have nutrition demos showing attendees how to prepare healthy recipes from the items available in the market that day.

The Health and Wellness team works in the community, teaching classes on a variety of topics: healthy cooking for kids, strategies for combating diabetes and obesity, effective grocery store shopping, extending your grocery budget and much more. Classes are free to participants and are offered in both English and Spanish, conducted in person and through virtual offerings.

The Food Bank’s farming efforts take place

at two farms and one teaching garden. Since 2007, the Food Bank has worked the soil at its main campus. That farming effort currently puts 40 acres under plow, cultivating fruits and vegetables that are then integrated into meals for kids and into distribution for those needing produce at home. Volunteers work side by side with staff to plant, maintain and harvest the items from the farm.

The Food Bank also makes items from its West Side farm available to local restaurants as a part of a farm-to-table initiative. The effort is a win for local restaurants and helps provide earned revenue support to the Food Bank, with every $1 of income providing 7 meals to the community.

The second Food Bank farm is located at historic Mission San Juan, and is an effort in partnership with the National Parks Service. The Food Bank maintains a MOU with the National Park, allowing them to farm 45 acres in exchange for maintaining and staffing a teaching garden at the Mission. The teaching farm at Mission San Juan shows historical farming as it would have occurred 300 years ago, including the use of flood irrigation from the local acequia.

The Food Bank’s farming effort has multiple purposes. First, it is an effort to educate people about food and how it is grown. The farms host tours for schools on a weekly basis. Second, it is an effort to discuss sustainable farming and energy practices. Water and conservation are so key to the food economy. Farming gives the Food Bank a platform to discuss these practices. Finally, the Food Bank farms as a way to engage the community in giving back through volunteerism.

To find out more information about the San Antonio Food Bank, visit www.safoodbank.org or follow them on all social channels #safoodbank.

Michael Guerra is the Chief Resource Officer of the San Antonio Food Bank.