By Gina Chen | From the Edible DC Summer 2020 Issue
For many of us, the first time we felt insecure about where our next meal would come from happened in the last two months. That feeling might’ve driven us to consider ways of sourcing our food outside of supermarkets, grocery stores and Amazon Prime. At the same time, we’ve reeled at the news of farmers throwing away thousands of pounds of produce and euthanizing animals while we saw grocery store shelves empty. We might even have connected the racial and socioeconomic inequities of our society to the food system, realizing that the communities being hit the hardest with food shortages are often the low-income ones and communities of color.
Unfortunately, the way most problems get fixed is they have to get really bad first.
For years, people working in the regional food system have realized the flaws and inequities of our national food system. Tom McDougall has made it his life’s work to address them. And in the last two months, he’s seen exactly why his work is essential.
McDougall is the founder of 4P Foods, a food hub in the DC region that partners with regional farms who share 4P’s values of a fair and sustainable food system to bring healthy, locally produced food directly to consumers. In April, to address the food shortages and waste triggered by breaks in the food supply chain, McDougall launched the Mid-Atlantic Food Resilience and Access Coalition (MAFRAC). Its goal was to keep farmers farming and food workers working by connecting the dots of a broken food supply chain. And in just a couple of months, MAFRAC has managed to do just that. But the organization seeks to be a part of a broader solution to transform our food system to be more equitable for both consumers and food workers.
I spoke with McDougall to better understand the problems of our food system and how MAFRAC is helping to be a part of the solution.
EDIBLE DC: What contributed to our food supply chain falling apart during the COVID pandemic?
Tom McDougall: A good place to start is to recognize that seven of the 10 lowest-paying jobs in America are in the food system. We have a baseline of emergency needs during normal times—that’s where food pantries, food banks and free and reduced lunch programs come in.
When the people in restaurants and hospitality lost their jobs, they became the first wave of people hitting the emergency access points that were not designed to feed that many people. It was the waitress that had $14 in her bank account and an empty pantry who needed that really good Sunday brunch shift to be able to buy groceries by the first week of April. It was the laborer in the field of a farm whose business collapsed overnight because it was dedicated to supplying restaurants. During crisis mode, supply chains break because they’re not designed to be nimble. The industrial food system in the U.S. is composed of large supply chains. With a chain, when a single part breaks, the whole thing breaks. So when it broke, you ended up with a lot of mismatches, like a whole bunch of supply here and a whole bunch of demand there, but producers and buyers unable to find each other because they’re not a part of the same chain.
EDC: What was the impetus behind MAFRAC and how were you able to get it formed so quickly during pandemic?
TM: Many regional food actors in the DC region have been building relationships with each other for years, and we’ve always talked about how we need regionally distributed supply chains that are more resilient than big, centralized ones.
Local and regional systems are designed like a net where there are a lot of actors interconnected at different points. As a food hub with warehouses in Southern and Northern Virginia, an office in DC and deep one-on-one relationships with community organizations, 4P was in a unique position to connect the dots.
When the pandemic happened, we just raised our hand and said, “Hey, we’re happy to quarterback this thing. Who’s in?” We started with a core group of regional food banks and food hubs and then spread the word to smaller, under-resourced, not-networked community organizations, churches and other faith-based organizations that are not typically thought of as part of the food system but are very much feeding people.
EDC: So how exactly does MAFRAC connect the dots?
TM: We got a communications platform going so that people could start talking to each other. There were resources that were being shared in DC that someone from Central VA could really benefit from, but they weren’t talking to each other. For example, Keany Produce had a whole bunch of food that they needed to donate but all the food banks in DC were being flushed with donations. Meanwhile, Fauquier Fish, a tiny food pantry in rural Virginia, was completely empty. So we just connected those dots and that became our primary exercise. Every day we have a MAFRAC call that starts with “What do you have? And what do you need?” Coordinating and dot-connecting became the main function of MAFRAC.
EDC: MAFRAC has also evolved to do fundraising. Tell us more about that.
TM: It’s wonderful that organizations like World Central Kitchen have been able to use their teams to make meals to feed people—that’s awesome. But almost none of the food that is coming into those restaurants comes from local sources. Why? Because it’s more expensive. If the cost of goods for a meal is $3, sourcing all the food from local, independent producers would make it $5. That’s where our fundraising comes in. We’re trying to raise $10 million to cover that $2 spread.
EDC: What are some success stories from MAFRAC efforts that you can share?
TM: We just awarded a grant to DC Central Kitchen to allow them to source more local food to give away. We also helped them procure a whole bunch of tomatoes from a local farm in Virginia that were otherwise going to go to waste. Another project we’re coordinating right now is picking up tens of thousands of pounds of frozen turkey from the Virginia Poultry Growers Association that was previously destined for food service and bringing them to organizations in DC that are feeding communities in PG County.
EDC: How are farms doing now and how are you helping them through this time?
TM: It depends. Local farms that previously relied on direct-to-consumer relationships—either with CSAs or farmers’ markets—are doing great right now. Independent farms who have had the resources, access to technology, and talent to pivot to go direct-to-consumer are doing better than those who haven’t. The ones that I’m most worried about are the rural farms that heavily relied on restaurants as their end customer. Even if these farms could pivot to sell directly to consumers, if the entire population of your town is 600 people, it’s not enough business to make up for the loss. 4P Foods and MAFRAC are actively trying to find and partner with folks that are in that boat and help them absorb some of that loss.
EDC: I know many people who have joined CSAs and 4P Foods during the pandemic to get convenient access to fresh, local food. What has been the response been like from your customers?
TM: We had a new customer who joined 4P during the COVID crisis because grocery stores were closed and Amazon was on a 10-day lead time. When her first box of food arrived, she opened it in her kitchen and burst into tears. She didn’t know why at first, but she sent us an email later saying that it was because she was feeling so nervous about whether the food would arrive and where she would get food if it didn’t. It was the first time in her life that she knew what it felt like to be food insecure. To think of the millions of families who are food insecure during normal times gave her a new perspective of what her role should be.
EDC: How are you thinking about MAFRAC’s role beyond the pandemic?
TM: We’re thinking about short-term, mid-term and long-term horizons right now. Short-term, we’re leaning into coordination support and funding to allow people to get fed with healthy, local food while keeping food system workers working and paid. Mid-term, which is through the end of the year, we want to have conversations with our partners to evaluate what new business models and partnerships could work long-term. And long-term, we’re trying to answer three questions: 1) What does a regional food net look like? 2) How do we bring it to life? and 3) What policy changes need to be advanced?
The one thing that local and regional food systems have not historically had is powerful coalitions, which is the way that big industry and multinational corporations have gotten the policies that they want. If we’re able to build an industry coalition to advance policies that bring more local food into our food system, then we can begin to make the system more equitable long-term.
EDC: How do you think about food equity?
TM: To me, food equity has three components: 1) Geographic access (the distance and means to get to good food); 2) Financial access (affordability with respect to your earnings); and 3) Personal access (time, knowledge and desire to procure healthy food). You need to have all three components to have equitable access to good food. Food from independent, local suppliers has a higher price tag than conventional, industrially produced food because the conventional, industrial food is not adequately priced. The true cost of producing that kind of food is so much higher if we consider the costs from production, to processing, to distribution, to consumption, to environmental waste, to the cost to our health care system. But we’re not measuring those things successfully. For now, the solution involves finding customers who value the current price differential and have the means to vote with their wallet to help advance and strengthen the regional net of food suppliers. Those customers can then subsidize those who don’t have the luxury to close the gap.
EDC: What is your message to those customers?
TM: To the consumer who is newly having their eyes open to the challenges and inequities of the food system, don’t you dare forget. Don’t let us as a society go back to normal because normal wasn’t working. If your ears and eyes are open to learning about your food system right now, let’s talk about how f*cked up it is. But let’s also talk about the alternatives, which can be more expensive and inconvenient, but doesn’t have to be that way if we advocate for policy change. In the meantime, join a local CSA and vote with your fork and wallet. Together, we can fight for a better future for our food system.
