Farmer Foodshare

Our Mission

Farmer Foodshare’s mission is to reshape the disconnected food system by removing barriers to growing and accessing local food.

Farmer Foodshare is unique in that we approach hunger from both sides of the problem - supporting North Carolina’s small farmers who are struggling to stay in business and disadvantaged populations who lack access to fresh and nutritious food. Since 2009, Farmer Foodshare has fostered cross-sector partnerships to support our efforts to build a local food system in which all members of our community can have access to healthy, nutritious food, and those who labor in agriculture can make a viable living.

Farmer Foodshare began as a grassroots effort at the Carrboro Farmers Market to address inequitable access to fresh, healthy food for all members of the community. Farmers, market shoppers, and those experiencing food insecurity alike began a produce donation program to collect food from shoppers and farmers for communities in need. This “donation station” concept now operates at 26 markets statewide. Some are run by Farmer Foodshare, some by local volunteers, and a few are driven by community organizations, and in 2018, they contributed 51,445 pounds of fresh produce back into the community.

Over the past 10 years, Farmer Foodshare has expanded its impact. We now operate a Wholesale Market that provides local institutions a means to efficiently source produce from NC farmers and generated $636,000 in revenue for these growers in 2018; a Food Ambassador program that provides nutrition and food system education to more than 8,000 high need students; and Community Foodshare, which supports community organizations in identifying and creating a variety of sustainable strategies for sourcing and learning about fresh, nutritious local food. All of these efforts work to build a more sustainable and equitable local food system.