Farm Share Inc.
Dave Friedrichs, President
Patricia Robbins, Vice President/Executive Director
300 N. Krome Ave.
Florida City, Fla. 33034
(305) 246-3276
(305) 246-3128 fax

Looking back on it now, this remarkable organization's founders say, it is hard to believe that only four years have passed since the day that Dave Friedrichs, the manager of a medium-size food-processing plant in Homestead looked out over his plant's busy production area one autumn afternoon and realized with guilt and shame what an appalling amount of food was wasted -- 80,000 pounds of it per day throughout the six-month growing season in his plant alone -- because the agribusiness industry accepts only the most perfect tomatoes, beans, eggplant and squash for shipment to the hungry markets of the north.

Friedrichs called the Dade County Farm Bureau to talk about finding a way to share the unused food with food pantries and soup kitchens, and they set up a pilot food distribution in December 1991, but, organizers say, it "fizzled" because most emergency food providers didn't have a practical way to get out to the processing plants or to take food back.

A few months later, Patricia Robbins, a Miami housewife, saw an article about the situation in the local newspaper. She called Friedrichs, visited his plant, and before she knew it, she had volunteered to coordinate the project.

Operating from a bare desk in a small room with a borrowed telephone in another processing plant, she started making calls. It took just two calls to find 10,000 pounds of potatoes and 6,000 pounds of green beans free for the taking, and one more to find a Miami homeless shelter eager to take them. A processor donated a truck to make the delivery, and just as simply as that, Farm Share was under way. By the end of that year's growing season, they had distributed 1.3 million pounds of food that would otherwise have been wasted.

Farmers and processors became excited about the idea, and before long it caught the attention of the state Agriculture Commissioner, Bob Crawford, who donated the use of a 51,000-square-foot building and loaned a full-time staffer (Will Brown) to work with Robbins; and it won the support of state Rep. John Cosgrove, of Miami, who persuaded the Legislature to cough up $100,000, then $250,000, which made it possible for Farm Share to transport donated food to recipients all over Florida. In another public-private partnershipwith the Florida Department of Corrections, supervised prison inmates are assigned to help sort, process and pack the incoming produce.

Last year, Farm Share's production increased to 7.5 million pounds of food; this year's harvest will probably yield 12 million pounds. A related program, Farm Share/Sea Share, in which commercial shrimp fishers donate frozen edible fish inadvertently scooped up in the shrimp nets, distributed 100,000 pounds of fish in recent years.

Most of the food goes directly to emergency food providers in Florida, who must agree to give it all to poor and hungry people without any charge. A small amount is also distributed directly to individuals, who may come directly to Farm Share's Florida City packing house on alternate Wednesdays and take all the food they can use, upon displaying a welfare card, food-stamp authorization, or similar evidence of need.

Florida agencies have first call on the food, but when it can't be distributed locally because transportation isn't available -- a condition that's sadly all too common -- two major national organizations, The Society of Saint Andrew and Operation Blessing, distribute the bounty throughout the eastern seaboard.

Farm Share gets a great deal done with a small staff (three individuals), volunteers, inmate labor and a budget of only $300,000, but with additional resources, it could do much more. Robbins continues working as a volunteer. Organizers estimate that Farm Share is salvaging, at most, 10 to 15 percent of the produce that's being wasted in Florida each year, and Sea Share's salvaged fish represent only a pittance of the estimated THREE BILLION fish wasted in the shrimping industry every year.

Patricia Robbins was recently named Florida's "Woman of the Year in Agriculture" by Commissioner Bob Crawford. Robbins, quoted in the state's Jan. 12, 1996 press release, was modest: "I intended to volunteer one day a week, but my heart got into it," she said. "There are so many hungry people and so much food available, all that is needed is to get the two together."

Farm Share has recovered more than 22 million pounds of fresh produce. Farm Share does not charge individuals or agencies any fees for this nutritious food.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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