For the Tohono O'odham Tribe in southwestern and central Arizona, food is the foundation of health, culture, community, family, and economies. Since 1996, the grassroots community organization Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) has been dedicated to improving the health, cultural vitality, sustainability, and economic revitalization for the Tohono O’odham Nation.

This fall, thanks to TOCA’s new school food enterprise, Desert Rain Food Services, 700 children on the Tohono O'odham Nation will be served healthier school food sourced from local farmers. TOCA received a $300,000 Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) grant to pilot a school food service enterprise that supports healthier eating and a strong indigenous food economy.

The Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) tested a way of making fruits and vegetables more affordable for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assis­tance Program (SNAP). Under HIP, SNAP partici­pants received a financial incentive for purchasing fruits and vegetables. The HIP evaluation used a random assignment research design.

Specifically, 7,500 Hampden County SNAP households were randomly selected to partic­ipate in HIP, while the remaining 47,595 households continued to receive SNAP benefits as usual. The final evaluation report presents findings on the impacts of HIP on fruit and vegetable consumption and spending, the processes involved in implementation and operating HIP, impacts on stakeholders, and the costs associated with the pilot.

This report shares how our Double Up Food Bucks program grew from a small pilot in Detroit to a statewide success story that supported more than 200,000 low-income families and more than 1,000 farmers in 2013 alone, and has had a greater than $5 million effect on Michigan’s economy.

With so many people, especially low-income people, affected by diet-related health conditions, building a connection between healthy foods and the doctor's office may be one of the most effective ways to improve health outcomes.

 Learn how you can develop an equitable food hub in your own community.  This webinar highlights how food hub operations are creating a more equitable and inclusive food system and discuss lessons learned and strategies for success.

Mandela MarketPlace grew out of grassroots community organizing efforts to shift resource dynamics, giving residents access to healthy food retail and neighborhood development funding. Incorporated in 2004, Mandela MarketPlace is a nonprofit organization that currently works in partnership with local farmers, local residents, and community-based businesses to build health, wealth, and assets through cooperative food enterprises.

Read this in-depth case study and accompanying photo essay for more information. 

The eight Get Healthy Philly (GHP) markets—opened between 2010 and 2011 in partnership with the Department of Public Health—and The Food Trust’s other farmers’ markets continue to grow along various measures of success: SNAP sales, Philly Food Bucks redemptions, customer and farmer survey data, WIC and Senior FMNP sales, customer counts, and number of operating market days. This report summarizes and evaluates the impact, reach and key lessons learned from the 2013 farmers’ market season and the fourth season of the Philly Food Bucks program.

The food system works for some, but fails too many of us.  Yet, we already have a glimpse of the possibility of a just and healthy food system.  To get there, we must use a critical race lens to diagnose what is wrong with our current system, assess entry points for change, and determine ways that we can work together to build a better system for all of us.  This report shares an analysis of what it means to build a racially equitable food system – from field to farm to fork – and lays out steps toward achieving that goal.