Regional Food Systems
Our food systems reflect some of the 21st century’s most pressing challenges, but also offer significant opportunities to address them.
America’s industrialized and massive-scale agricultural system contributes to climate change, water scarcity and pollution, food-borne illness, antibiotic resistance, loss of wildlife and habitat, obesity and other disease and food insecurity.
Creating new, regional and sustainable food systems can help address many of these cross-cutting concerns while ensuring the most vulnerable among us – children, the poor and people in hospitals – are getting the healthy food they need to thrive. We’re supporting such a regional food system in New England by:
- Channeling demand from our region’s largest food purchasers such as schools, colleges and universities, and hospitals to increase the economic success of sustainable agriculture;
- Focusing on supply chains to expand and streamline the supply and demand of regionally and sustainably produced food; and
- Strengthening food production and distribution systems so they can meet the growing demand.
Grantee Profile
Migrant Justice
“Milk with Dignity will bring about a new day for dairy workers. We will transform this industry and win our human rights.” – Enrique Balcazar, Migrant Justice Farm Worker Member*
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Impact Investing
Ayers Brook Goat Dairy
In 2012, The John Merck Fund joined philanthropic partners, The Castanea Foundation and the High Meadows Fund, to form Evergreen Partners, L3C, committing $300,000 to the partnership to help finance Vermont Creamery’s ...
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Impact Investing
Fair Food Fund
In 2012, The John Merck Fund Board made a $425,000 investment in the Fair Food Network’s Fair Food Fund-Northeast. The Fund was established to help fill the financing gap that many smaller-scale sustainable farmers ...
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Recent Regional Food Systems Grant Awards
| Date | Description | Program Area | Focus | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/2018 |
Real Food ChallengeTo demand that the three largest food service management companies (Sodexo, Aramark, and Compass Group) shift to a purchasing system that is oriented toward “real food” and phase out corporate kickbacks. |
Regional Food Systems |
$85,000 | |
| 09/2018 |
Northeast Organic Farming Association of VermontTo explore how to help Vermont and New England farmers and food producers enter the wholesale market. |
Regional Food Systems |
$40,000 | |
| 09/2018 |
Red TomatoTo grow and diversify sales to institutions and engage in Northeast efforts to increase engagement with individual campuses, regional supply chain facilitators, and corporate purchasers. |
Regional Food Systems |
$50,000 | |
| 09/2018 |
Health Care Without HarmTo harness the assets of health care facilities and allied institutions to identify and invest in projects that develop a sustainable New England food system. |
Regional Food Systems |
$85,000 | |
| 09/2018 |
American Farmland TrustTo create a multi-stakeholder coalition of farmland and clean energy groups to accelerate the expansion of solar facility siting while preserving New England’s most productive farm and forestland. |
Regional Food Systems |
$100,000 | |
| 06/2018 |
New Hampshire Community Loan FundTo work toward sustainability and systems change for farmers and food producers in New Hampshire by offering hands-on financial literacy training, expanding market channels, and connecting farms with agricultural financiers. |
Regional Food Systems |
$40,000 | |
| 06/2018 |
Food ConnectsTo leverage existing food hub network relationships to increase local food purchases in the region and support the broader development of inter-hub relationships and knowledge sharing. |
Regional Food Systems |
$75,000 | |
| 06/2018 |
Farm to Institution New EnglandTo develop effective tools, resources, and policy recommendations to open institutional markets to regional farmers and food producers, particularly within higher education. |
Regional Food Systems |
$225,000 | |
| 06/2018 |
Rhode Island Food Policy CouncilTo grow new local food supply chains for institutions in Rhode Island and to select, track, and communicate about progress toward key metrics outlined in the Rhode Island Food Strategy. |
Regional Food Systems |
$40,000 | |
| 06/2018 |
National Sustainable Agriculture CoalitionTo maintain an organizer in the New England plus New York region to educate and engage grassroots farm and food groups and practitioners around federal agriculture policy, and establish a multi-region national network of such organizers to allow for sustained policy advocacy. |
Regional Food Systems |
$50,000 |