Farms to Food Banks

Connecting the passions and outputs of our customers with the needs of our communities

The Farm to Food Banks program is a bridge connecting people who grow food with people who need it most. The greatest need among regional and national food banks is almost universally the same: fresh produce.

In 2016, the program’s first year, nearly 500 Farm Credit Mid-America employees picked, packaged and distributed locally grown produce — much of it donated from customers’ farms — to food banks across Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The volunteer initiative is part of Farm Credit’s four-year financial commitment to provide fresh produce to distribution networks in the area, which connect surplus and donated produce from local farmers with food banks, food kitchens, community churches and other emergency food providers. The program is an evolution of a 2015 project in which more than 75 Louisville-based employees spent a day gleaning peppers, kale and other vegetables from a local farm and then packaging and distributing that produce at a senior care facility. They sent more than a ton of produce to a local food bank distribution center.

Farm Credit is working with Farms to Food Banks in Kentucky and Indiana, Farm to Families in Tennessee and the Ohio Ag Clearance Program to stock food shelves.