This series written for and published by Edible Magazine in SC explores how South Carolina’s food system is evolving to overcome the growing challenges in order to meet the state’s needs. 

The winter season is rich with traditions and in the South, food is the star of the show. Sweet potato and pecan pie, cornbread and oyster dressing, greens and hoppin’ john are all invited to dinner. Recipes are as cherished as they are debated but everyone agrees that it is the freshest ingredients that make the best dishes. Long before locavores and farm-to-table restaurants, dinner tables in the South have been a celebration of sustenance and seasonality. Before refrigerated transportation and grocery stores, communities ate what was grown on either their land or their neighbors. It is easy to see how so many of South Carolina’s traditional dishes came to be simply by looking at a farmer or fishermen’s harvest schedule and the incredibly diverse and abundant range of local foods available in our state. At the peak of every season when gardens and farms grew more than could be eaten or sold, kitchens became de facto processing facilities, canning or “putting up” until the shelves were full.

While many families have continued to produce, harvest, process, and catch these same beloved foods for generations, the number of these operations still in business is staggeringly low. Currently only 0.7% of the population in South Carolina is farming on 4.8 million acres with only 6% of those farmers (0.000042% of the population or 25,000 farmers) are selling directly to consumers. In 1920, 11% of the population was farming on 12.4 million acres, so how did a state with such strong cultural ties to food and farming lose so many farms?

Over the last several decades, the shift in American values, culture, policies, technology, and infrastructure have had a direct impact on the country’s systems, including those producing and distributing food. Designed by people in power, these systems were shaped around the priorities of society and for decades these included efficiency, convenience, and cost. While these systems were effective at centering these priorities it also gave rise to a culture of fast, easy, and cheap consumerism. The benefits have come at the expense of human lives, health and safety, equity, environmental degradation, the erosion of local economies, rural blight, etc. 

Within the food and farming sector, these systems pushed farmers to focus on cash crops over community, placed technology and output over ecology, and drove the “get big or get out” approach that led to small farms being bought out and consolidated into larger monoculture farms focused on export. From the 1930’s Dust Bowl and the 1980’s farming crisis to the 2000’s dairy industry collapse and the pandemic’s meat packing plant deaths, generation after generation of farming communities, food system workers, and farmland have suffered because of these priorities. Farming currently has the highest suicide rate of any other industry in the United States and food system workers are the most food insecure population in the country. These are symptoms of a broken system; although some would argue that it is working exactly as it is designed despite the repercussions. Across sectors, there is a collective awakening to the negative consequences of our globalized systems. 

As these realities become widely known, consumers are increasingly demanding transparency and accountability for where, how, and who produces their goods and products. For the food system, this is being achieved by rebuilding the connection between farmers and consumers. In a way, the industry is working to find its way back to the country’s historical roots of neighbors feeding neighbors. Known as a “values-based supply chain”, “local food supply chain”, “foodshed” or “community food web”, these systems focus on building a network of individuals, organizations, municipalities, and businesses committed to create strong markets that put farmers first. The benefits of “buying local” extend beyond the benefit of consumers knowing their farmer and also create opportunities to support farmers whose production practices align with their conservation values, increase system resiliency, support the local economy, reduce the carbon footprint or food miles of their meals, increase the nutrient density of their food, access heirloom and specialty products, build community, and reduce farmland loss. 

But how far can a product travel before these benefits begin to diminish and it is no longer considered “local”? The definition of what constitutes local is still debated but is generally understood to mean products that are grown and processed close to where they are sold, purchased and consumed. According to the US Department of Agriculture local includes foods grown, caught, and/or processed within 400 miles or within the state in which it was produced. Based on the Real Food Challenge, local is designated by a 250-mile radius and extended to 500 miles for meat. For the branding of local food to be effective at differentiating products (and demanding a premium price), it is important for consumers to clearly understand what they are buying into. Putting this into practice has proven to be more challenging than drawing radius circles on a map.

Food and farming systems are as diverse and dynamic as the regions they serve; making a rigid one-size-fits all approach impractical. Variability is created by geography, planting zones, length of growing season, transportation, markets, arable soil, access to water, and regulatory agencies. What works in California might be impossible in Minnesota. While some areas can reasonably define that local products are sourced within 75 miles, others may need 500 miles to secure enough product to meet customer demand. In either case, those selling local products either have the trust of consumers or are able to document their supply chain. For direct to consumer sales such as farmers markets and community supported agriculture shares, the farmers typically set the distance based on time and transportation limits and consumers are able to buy directly from the farmer. But at some point, the time and cost to transport the product exceeds the potential benefit of the sale, naturally creating a smaller radius. 

Eventually the demand outgrew the limitations of individual farmers and 1:1 transactions. As restaurants, grocery stores and institutions joined the movement, the need arose for a third party able to source higher volumes of local food with more consistency. Enter the concept of local food hubs. Based on combinations of cooperative principles, mission driven intentions, and wholesale distribution practices, food hubs have emerged to help the local food movement scale up. These organizations and businesses have been a tool for social change rooted in a desire to support small to mid-sized farmers, ranchers, and fishermen in accessing larger markets. 

By working with farmers to standardize their products and collectively crop plan around market demands, hubs can combine items or “aggregate” from a variety of local farms in order to meet the volume, quality, and selection expectations of larger buyers. They can also guarantee “source identification” so that the final customer knows what farm their products are from. On the production side, farmers can shift back to a focus on growing, harvesting, and grading products and hand over the marketing, logistics, and payment services to the hub. 

In South Carolina, the movement started with Gullah Farmers Cooperative and GrowFood Carolina and has since grown to nine food hubs, trading partnerships with three traditional wholesales, and the creation of the SC Food Hub Network. As a small state, these organizations and businesses must invest significant time on the logistics of matching buyers with sellers, trading between hubs to move this product across the state efficiently, and coordinating crop plans to meet demand. Food hubs have also embraced the need to, when appropriate, broaden “local” to include “regional” foods depending on the product and season. In South Carolina, three of the hubs serving the state are either on or adjacent to the border, buying and selling product from and to North Carolina and Georgia in addition to South Carolina. It has also led to the growth in partnerships that extend even further beyond our borders through the Eastern Food Hub Collaborative which spans from South Carolina to Maine. 

As the local foods movement continues to grapple with defining its boundaries and refining the logistics, there is still a long journey ahead for the system to build a system that is equitable and accessible to the community. During the inaugural statewide Growing Local SC Food Summit held in October of this year, food system leaders across sectors gathered to talk about and prioritize the challenges and opportunities for the state. The top four issues were the cost of food, policy reform, land access, and systemic racism. These challenges mirror those experienced across the country and while many need to be addressed at a federal level, the state and its leaders will play a crucial role in how these issues are addressed locally.

In the coming months and years, billions of dollars will be poured specifically into local food systems at the national level and millions of these dollars are already earmarked for South Carolina. For example, the SC Department of Agriculture requested $20,000,000 to support local food supply chain infrastructure from the state ARPA funds in September 2021 and continues to wait for legislative approval at the state house. This funding will be crucial in supporting the state as it prepares to utilize its recently awarded $6.1 million in funds through the USDA Local Foods Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement to purchase locally sourced food from socially disadvantaged farmers for distribution into underserved communities. Not only are these funds urgently needed but our state’s ability to equitably, efficiently and effectively utilize the funding received has a direct impact on how much future federal funding makes it to South Carolina. The South Carolina Food Policy Council and its members will be leading the conversation on issues like these and creating opportunities for individuals and organizations to engage and advocate through their committees, initiatives, and resources. Membership to the SCFPC is free and provides an opportunity to participate in conversations around the following topics: food access and insecurity, planning and transportation, racial equity within the food system, food is medicine, urban and rural local food, and branding and communication. I hope to see many of you at the next meeting as we continue to grow South Carolina’s local food system from farm and garden to table.  

This four part series written for Edible Columbia and Charleston explores how South Carolina’s food system is evolving to overcome the growing challenges in order to meet the state’s needs. Readers will gain a behind the scenes perspective of the system getting food from the fields and onto forks by walking through the process, people, places, and policies of South Carolina’s local food system.

One of the most pleasant surprises of the pandemic has to be the 20 million Americans who took up gardening, a staggering number not seen in the United States since the Victory Garden movement of the 1940s. In the midst of the COVID-19 chaos, people found refuge in their backyard sanctuaries and experienced the joy and empowerment that comes with growing your own food. The pandemic also pushed consumers to seek sources of food closer to home through local farms and markets when the shelves at the grocery store turned up empty.

Prior to the pandemic, the average middle-class or wealthy American living in a metropolitan area has likely not been given a reason to question the historically cheap, convenient, abundant, and diverse selection of foods. When functioning as designed, the globalized food system has the power to portray a world with no growing seasons, blemish-free food, and an abundance of choice for those with means. In contrast, millions of Americans, especially in rural communities, have long been living with a front row seat to the broken aspects of the food system in which food is inaccessible, unaffordable, or unhealthy.

In 2018, South Carolina ranked 42nd in the nation for poverty, with both rural and urban residents facing food deserts (lack of access to a grocery store) and food swamps (excessive access to fast food/convenience stores). With the onset of the pandemic, the challenges faced by rural and under-resourced communities became problems for everyone. There is nothing like showing up to the grocery store and finding empty shelves to spark an interest in how our food supply chains work (or don’t in this case). Layer by layer, elements of the food system were peeled back and weaknesses revealed. The public began to understand that the food system can be complex, inequitable, unsafe, fragile and unsustainable. Headlines filled with supply chain disruptions, meat packing plants shutdowns, worker deaths, food safety issues, challenges with food access, and endless lines at food banks painted a picture of a broken system. For those living with limited resources, the existing disparities only grew while healthy food choices continued to be unavailable and food unaffordable. According to a poverty study from the Sisters of Charity, nearly half of the state’s residents lived in areas of low food access in 2015, a time when the state had approximately 812 grocery stores. By early 2020, 105 of these stores had closed (12.9%), further reducing access.

As we approach the end of 2022, communities continue to feel the impacts of the pandemic but as a whole, many aspects of the food system have gone back to business as usual with one major exception: price. The 10.4% increase over the last year continues to fuel the conversation around why the US is experiencing the largest 12-month increase in food costs since February 1981. For those in food production, these costs are in many ways tied to an increase in price of inputs, transportation, and labor. Unfortunately, even at the current prices, the system is not capturing the true cost of production. This means that despite the higher sales prices, farmers are still challenged with reaching profitability, an issue the industry has been grappling with for decades. The majority of farm operators nationally have off-farm jobs or rely on the income of a spouse, which accounts for an average of 82 percent of total income for all family farms in 2019. Low profitability means low wages for everyone down the line and resulting in those working in the food supply chain having the highest enrollment in SNAP benefits than any other industry. It doesn’t take a math degree to recognize that this equation is not adding up.

South Carolina has a long agricultural history, with agribusiness currently representing the largest sector in the state with 1 in 9 jobs are in agribusiness with profits of close to $50 billion and 4.7 million acres of productive farmland. With these impressive numbers, it is hard to reconcile the fact that we are also a state in which 1 in 10 South Carolinians face food insecurity and our farmland received the eighth highest national “threat score” (risk of being converted to non-agricultural use) by the American Farmland Trust. While it is tempting to take readers on a journey through the evolution of how our food systems came to be what they are, the time for finger pointing, political posturing and polarization have passed. Less than 1% of South Carolina’s population is still farming (0.7%), and these numbers are actively threatened as the state continues to lose farmland. As the six fastest growing state in the US, American Farmland Trust has projected that in less than 20 years, we will lose an additional 436,700 acres of land to development. Farmland loss is attributed to a wide variety of factors, but for many, it comes down to money. To keep farmland productive, we have to keep it profitable. But history has taught us that this can not be profitability gained at the expense of our local people and places.

Understanding the challenges and recognizing the need for change is only the beginning. Having a clear pathway to change is crucial. In 2013, the Making Small Farms into Big Business report was commissioned to understand the potential for the state to grow their food system. The take home message was clear: the market opportunities are ripe for the picking. It revealed that historically, South Carolina has exported the food it grows and imports the food it eats. According to the study, 90% of food eaten in South Carolina was imported from outside of the state. By shifting production towards local markets, we could reap the benefits from farm to table.

These benefits extend far beyond the sales of local food but have demonstrated the capacity to be a tool for economic development. The growing demand for local food also brings with it a wide range of  physical and social infrastructure. Communities across the country, South Carolina included, have experienced the development of local food hubs, mobile abattoirs (meat processing), community kitchens, direct to consumer software, innovative small farm technology, farming apprenticeships, incubator farms, community gardens, farm to table restaurants, small grocers, food councils, and all of the associated jobs along the local food supply chain. What started as an effort to grow and sell food locally quickly becomes an opportunity to create jobs and increase community connectivity. The national data indicates that local retailers return 52 percent of their revenue back into the local economy, compared to 14 percent for national chain retailers and have a record of employing more locals for longer periods of time. Once heralded as only a trend, the local food movement has earned a permanent place in the food and farming landscape generating an estimated $20 billion dollars nationally.

Members of the SC Food Hub Network have seen local food sales grow from approximately $2 million in 2016 to $4.4 million in 2020. Pre-pandemic, this growth was achieved through robust farm to table focused restaurants, grocers, and wholesale accounts with a focus on creating profitability for SC farmers. Selling products as a premium does however create a barrier in accessing local food, something that was creatively addressed incrementally through gleaning (gathering unsold or unharvested crops for donation) and through grant supported programs.

In a surprising turn of events, COVID-19 actually created a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between local producers and those facing food insecurity. South Carolina food hubs, distributors, food access agencies, and community based organizations partnered to leverage millions of relief dollars to pay farmers for food distributed into local communities. While the Palmetto state was able to provide incredible support for farmers and community members to buy and distribute local food through these partnerships, this is only one part of the system. A long-term strategic approach will need to be holistic and explore the challenges in inequities from land access and farmer training all the way to nutrition education and food waste.

Now begins the hard work of keeping up the momentum and working collaboratively to find place-based, long-term solutions. National policies (i.e. Farm Bill), federal appropriations, allocations, and grants will continue to have significant implications for anyone working in the food system, but we cannot overlook the state level policy, regulation, and investments that have the power to truly elevate or suppress the growth and efficacy within local communities. Rising to meet the challenge is the Growing Local SC local food network, a multi-sector project building off the work of the South Carolina Food Policy Council and the South Carolina Food Hub Network (funded by the USDA with matching funds provided by the SC Department of Agriculture). With nine founding partners and 30 leaders representing everything from public health to farmer training, the network aims to cultivate a thriving, equitable, inclusive, resilient, and just food economy providing access to healthy food for all in South Carolina.

At the heart of this network is a desire to build and strengthen the local food system community in the state to increase awareness, connectivity and collaboration for existing organizations and businesses. The network leaders are interested in elevating the voices of those often missing at the table and ensuring that the path forward creates opportunities for everyone in the state. The network has a wide range of ways to connect from an events calendar, newsletters and Instagram to a listserv and committees. This October, the group will host its inaugural Growing Local SC Food Summit in Greenville, SC to hear from those at every stage of the food system to understand the challenges, opportunities, and priorities for those working on the ground. Stay tuned for the next issue where we will share stories from the people attending the summit and hear their perspective on the future of South Carolina’s food system. Follow along via Instagram @growinglocalsouthcarolina, the website https://www.growinglocalsc.org/, the newsletter, and participate in person at the inaugural Local Food Summit: https://www.opportunitysc.org/food-summit

Statewide Network to Strengthen South Carolina’s Food Economy

An established group of leaders across South Carolina’s food system are launching a new network, Growing Local SC, to cultivate a thriving, equitable, inclusive, resilient, and just food economy providing access to healthy food for all. The Growing Local SC   local food network is one of 30 national projects awarded funding through the United States Department of Agriculture’s Regional Food System Partnership Grant program. With ten project partners, matching funds from the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, and project oversight from the South Carolina Food Policy Council, this highly collaborative and cross-sector network is a decade in the making. 

“Growing Local SC brings leaders together to create community-based solutions for a resilient food system for South Carolina,” states Project Director Nikki Seibert Kelley. Mrs. Kelley notes, “Local food systems are complex and highly place-based, making it essential for communities to build networks around the people working locally to get food from farms and gardens to the table.” The pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in global supply chains, demonstrating the importance of building regional economies able to withstand disturbances. Growing Local SC brings together agencies, organizations, coalitions, food hubs, and businesses to create a network focused on building systems to equitability, effectively, and economically source, aggregate, and distribute local food to South Carolinians. Growing Local SC is designed to be reflective of the state’s local food system and also includes Wholespire, University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health SNAP-Ed Implementing Agency, SC Food Hub Network (coordinated by Alison Pierce), Rural Resource Coalition, Bonita Global, LLC, Alianza Latina of the Midlands, SC State University Small Business Development Center, and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. 

Food system leaders across the state are encouraged to engage in Growing Local SC by joining the South Carolina Food Policy Council as a member, participating in the annual meetings, and getting engaged through committees, local food councils, and coalitions. Visit www.growinglocalsc.org for more information.

Red Estatal Refuerza la Economía Alimentaria de Carolina del Sur

Todo el Estado – Un grupo de líderes establecidos a través del sistema alimentario de Carolina del Sur están lanzando una nueva red, Growing Local SC, para cultivar una economía alimentaria próspera, equitativa, inclusiva, resistente, y justa que le provee acceso a comida saludable a todos. La red local alimentaria Growing Local SC es uno de los 30 proyectos nacionales otorgados fondos a través del programa Regional Food System Partnership Grant del Departamento de Agricultura de Estados Unidos. Con diez organizaciones asociadas en el proyecto, fondos complementarios del Departamento de Agricultura de Carolina del Sur, y fiscalización por el South Carolina Food Policy Council, esta red intersectorial se ha desarrollado a través de una década.

“Growing Local SC junta líderes para crear soluciones comunitarias hacia un sistema alimentario resistente en Carolina del Sur,” declara la Directora del Proyecto Nikki Seibert Kelley. La Sra. Kelley indicó, “Los sistemas alimentarios locales son complejos y altamente influenciados por su localización, lo que hace esencial que las comunidades construyan redes alrededor de las personas que están trabajando localmente para llevar comida desde las granjas y jardines a la mesa.” La pandemia ha resaltado la vulnerabilidad de las cadenas de suministro globales, demostrando la importancia de construir economías regionales capaces de resistir disturbios. Growing Local SC junta agencias, organizaciones, coaliciones, centros de distribución de comida, y negocios para crear una red enfocada en construir un sistema para equitativamente, eficazmente, y económicamente obtener, agregar, y distribuir comida local a través de Carolina del Sur. Growing Local SC está diseñado para reflejar el sistema alimentario local del estado, e incluye Wholespire, el Arnold School of Public Health de la Universidad de Carolina del Sur SNAP-ED Agencia de Implementación, SC Food Hub Network (coordinado por Alison Pierce), Rural Resource Coalition, Bonita Global, LLC, Alianza Latina of the Midlands, SC State University Small Business Development Center, and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

Todo líder del sistema alimentario a través del estado está bienvenido a colaborar en la red de Growing Local SC a través de una membresía gratis al South Carolina Food Policy Council, participando en reuniones anuales, e interactuando con los comités, las coaliciones y concilios de comida locales. Visite www.growinglocalsc.org para más información. ###

These are a few tips to help you prepare for hurricane season. More detailed information can be found on the NOAA Hurricane Preparedness website including being able to “Assess your risks and know your home’s vulnerability to storm surge, flooding and wind. Understand National Weather Service forecast products and especially the meaning of NWS watches and warnings.” They also have a great list to help you put together a basic disaster supplies kit. For anyone in the Southeast, you can follow Mike’s Weather Page on Facebook for regular updates and info on storms.

For those in South Carolina, there are a number of great resources available. For flooding issues in general, I follow the SC Flood Information Exchange. If you are in the Charleston area, I also follow Rob Fowler on FB and you can also sign up for Charleston County Citizen’s Alert if you want current updates as well as find details about the highway reversals here. For information on evacuations and other alerts, there is now also an app from the South Carolina Emergency Management Division you can download at the Apple App Store or from Google Play. Or you can download the South Carolina 511 App for similar information.

Check out your own area on the NOAA map. 

With the sun shining, bright green plants popping up, and baby animals frolicking in the fields, it would be easy to assume that business is back to normal after the devastation that Lowcountry farmers faced only six months ago with the 1,000-year-flood. But while farmers are looking forward to this season with hope, whether or not the season will deliver remains to be seen.

Reflecting on the months after the floods is brutal. Those of us in the industry had to watch the waters continue to rise long after the much publicized flooding had made national headlines. With ditches and roads washed out, ponds filled to the brim, and the water table saturated, every inch of rain felt like an ocean. The shellfish industry took a major hit with beds closing two days after the season opened, while many livestock producers had to scramble to move their animals to higher ground if there was any to be found. Hundreds of farmers have spent months standing at the edge of their destroyed fields unable to bring equipment in to make repairs, prepare their fields, or plant their next crop, all while the bills continue to pile up.

While farmers are no strangers to the hardships created by weather extremes and market fluctuation, last year was a trifecta of trouble. We had a summer drought, a drop in market prices for commodity farmers, and the worst flood our state has ever seen. Farming is risky and although successful farm businesses plan for the worst, circumstances last year put everyone to the ultimate test. A number of farms shut their doors and many are literally banking on this year’s crops to keep them in business. For those gearing up for the season, one of the biggest challenges will be finding, affording, and keeping labor.

Digging into the reality of farming is something not everyone has the stomach for, but with only one percent of our population farming, it is in our best interest to not only understand the challenges that farmers are facing but to take an active role in ensuring this industry can be a profitable and realistic business venture for the next generation. That, quite literally means, putting your money where your mouth is. Consider this: Despite the growing popularity of the “eat local” movement, South Carolina is still importing over 90 percent of its food. Challenge yourself to eat more locally, sign-up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share, and make the farmers’ market a part of your routine. Even more importantly, get educated on the policies impacting our farmers and our food. The industry was facing serious issues long before the rains came and will continue to remain unstable even with an increase in consumer demand.