The Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas announced Monday that the center has received a $549,976 grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation to create a sustainable food system that links small producers with large markets.
The UA will undergo the necessary interdisciplinary research and implementation through a program called Agile Agriculture. It is designed to provide easy access to produce that is grown locally, which is fresher, more nutritious and employs reduced transportation costs while benefiting both local farmers and retailers, the university said.
"The University of Arkansas is continuing to expand its environmental and sustainability efforts through interdisciplinary collaboration on campus and with other networks," Chancellor G. David Gearhart said in a news release. "We are very pleased that the Wal-Mart Foundation has made this grant to develop a sustainable food system that will be important to the economy and to consumers."
Ron McCormick, vice president of produce for Walmart, said in a news release that the retailer is committed to offering sustainable products will "continually encourage the development of future sustainable projects."
"The Applied Sustainability Center will implement Agile Agriculture to take the lead in removing greenhouse gas emissions and improving other aspects of environmental performance in food supply chains while creating business value for growers and marketers," Jon Johnson, executive director of the Applied Sustainability Center, said in a news release.
The goal of Agile Agriculture is to facilitate the availability of a safe, consistent and reliable supply of relevant products for purchase in the marketplace by large-scale buyers. The focus is on enhancing profitability for both existing and potential sellers and buyers in ways that create more sustainable agricultural systems.
"There is a large, mostly unmet, demand for local and regional food products across the United States," Michele Halsell, managing director of the center, said in a news release.
"This demand is driven on the consumer side by a desire to support local economies, reduce food transportation miles, promote sustainable growing practices and consume fresher products. Distributors and retailers are motivated by rapidly increasing transportation costs and a desire to reduce waste of expired produce and other perishable products."
Mike Faupel, program manager for the center, will supervise the Agile Agriculture project. He will facilitate a coalition that has been formed to address the demand for local products, including key land-grant university partners and non-governmental organizations.
The current reality, Johnson said, is that most of this market need is unmet because small- and medium-scale agricultural producers and processors do not have access to facilities to aggregate their products to provide scales needed by larger markets. In addition, most small producers don’t have necessary insurance, product traceability, documented food safety systems and other food distribution programs needed by larger distributors.
Numerous local and regional efforts exist to fill those gaps and several large retailers have seen success purchasing local products. But there is a desire to greatly expand these efforts.
"There are some existing commercial programs seeing success but none is operating at the scale needed to meet current and future market needs," Johnson said.
"None of these local/regional-sourcing programs address educational and aggregation needs of small/medium-scale producers and processors in a comprehensive manner. We believe the Agile Agriculture program will fill this gap."
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