Nutrition | HealthyCal - Part 2
 

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Second Harvest fills Santa Clara County food gap

Published: June 15, 2010 | No Comments

By Pam Marino

San Jose pediatrician Daniel Delgado has a big problem. His young patients – all from low-income families – are overweight or obese and in danger of developing diabetes. Many don’t have access to the fresh fruits and vegetables vital for better nutrition. How to connect his patients with the foods they so desperately need?

Dr. Daniel Delgado loads produce for low-income families at a Santa Clara County health center.

Delgado is hoping that some of that need will be met through monthly visits from Second Harvest Food Bank’s Produce Mobile to the East Valley Clinic of the Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center. The refrigerated truck is full of free, fresh produce reserved for qualified low-income families. It made its first-ever appearance at the clinic on Saturday, June 12 and will return the second Saturday morning of each month.

“It’s the very first county clinic site where this type of collaboration is happening,” Delgado said. “It’s groundbreaking.” He said he is very pleased that the clinic can now connect healthy food to patients at the same place they receive health care.

An estimated 200 families lined up to take advantage of the truck’s bounty on the first visit, including Beatrice Romero and her 10-year-old son, Sanny. Romero came at the invitation of a doctor at the clinic.

“I think it’s very good for my children and my money,” Romero said. “It’s a help.”

As Director of the Pediatric Healthy Lifestyles Center, Delgado spent two years working with officials from Second Harvest and Santa Clara County to make his vision of providing the fruits and vegetables to the clinic’s patients. Several obstacles had to be overcome, including the untangling of some bureaucratic red tape.

Two girls wait patiently for donated produce at a Santa Clara County health center.

Cindy McCown, Second Harvest senior director of programs and services, called their joint effort a “wonderful example of public and private partnership,” bringing together a county agency, a non-profit organization, and local churches.

The produce is donated to Second Harvest by local farmers, the California Association of Food Banks and Feeding America. In some cases the food bank pays for shipping of the produce, or they may pay farmers pennies per pound.

“This is food that would have been dumped,” McCown said at the event, pointing to dozens of boxes of various produce. As an example, she showed off nearly perfect hot house tomatoes that were blemished on their tops, making them unmarketable in stores.

Selection of produce varies by season; on the first clinic visit the selection included oranges, carrots, potatoes, bananas, nectarines and cherries. Simple to prepare recipes are provided in different languages, to give clients ideas about how to use the food.

Second Harvest has two donated trucks in the program, which was started in 2006. An estimated 32,000 people in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties benefit, McCown said. The trucks – brightly decorated with enticing photos of fresh food on the sides – visit a total of 49 sites, including schools, a dental clinic, a soup kitchen and churches.

Usually the agencies and organizations Second Harvest partner with have volunteers who can help oversee the produce distribution at each of the sites. But the East Valley Clinic does not have the people power, McCown said, which became a hurdle for bringing a truck there.

To overcome that issue, McCown turned to Second Harvest board member Pat Plant, who is also the Hunger Action Enabler for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and The Presbytery of San Jose. Plant found five churches willing to provide 22 volunteers to work at the clinic every month.

The partnership between the clinic and Second Harvest sprouted from a severe need that Delgado and fellow doctors see daily at the clinic. More than 30 percent of the children served by the East Valley Clinic are overweight. Most have developed insulin resistance or pre-diabetes and need fresh produce for the fiber and nutrients that will prevent them from developing diabetes in the future.

“People look at an overweight person and they think they are a glutton and are eating too much,” Delgado told me. “That’s not true. There’s a huge disparity in what people eat and how they eat.”

Some of the issues facing Delgado’s patients include things like “food insecurity,” which means being insecure about access to food due to lack of money. This can lead to things like hoarding food or overeating when there is access, and buying lower cost and lower quality food. Second Harvest officials also point to “food deserts” or entire low-income sections of cities where there is little or no access to large supermarkets that carry fresh, high quality produce at lower prices.

Delgado said there are grocery stores in East San Jose, but he called the produce available “suboptimal.” He also said that families already strapped for cash will hesitate to buy fresh vegetables out of a fear that their kids won’t eat them, meaning the money will be wasted. He hopes that the access to free produce will take away that worry, “and that will improve habits,” he said.

It’s also very common that at certain times of the month, families might not have the money to purchase food. The clinic’s doctors often refer patients to Second Harvest, which provides free food to families that qualify.

For the first mobile visit, Delgado said clinic doctors invited patients from the healthy lifestyles center, the pediatric and obstetrics departments and a department that cares for diabetic pregnant women, called PEP Services, or Perinatal Evaluation and Procedures. Delgado called targeting kids and moms-to-be first a “no brainer.” He said they will invite more of the clinic’s patients as the program continues.

Despite overcoming obstacles to bringing the truck to the clinic, one more obstacle still exists. Delgado said some patients may be embarrassed or ashamed to take free food. To overcome that fear, the clinic is trying to make the event more about health than handouts.

“By tying it to the health of their children or unborn child, we’re trying to help overcome that stigma,” Delgado said.

McCown is optimistic that patients will take advantage of the free produce. She called trust a huge issue for low-income clients and thinks they will trust the doctors who are urging them to participate. She also lauded Delgado for working to make the Produce Mobile a reality at the clinic.

“Without Dr. Delgado’s vision it would not be happening.”

 

52 menus for eating fresh and local every week

Published: June 2, 2010 | No Comments

By Daniel Weintraub

Joanne Neft

Joanne Neft has been eating local since before it was hip. As founder of the Placer County farmers market, it was just what she did.

Nearly every Saturday in Auburn, rain or shine, hot or cold, for 20 years Neft has been there, filling bags with fruits and vegetables and plenty of meat to grace her table for the week to come.

Now the rest of the world is catching up with Neft, and she welcomes the company.

Her new cookbook, “Placer County Real Food: Recipes and Menus for Every Week of the Year” (Auburn Printers, $28), is a how-to guide for eating fresh food in all four seasons. It includes 52 menus and recipes for meals from the farmers market year round. (Go to her website, placercountyrealfood.com, to purchase it or for a list of area stores that carry it.)

Neft’s book was inspired by her disappointment every fall, when the bustling crowds of summer deserted the market in the jurors’ parking lot of the Placer County courthouse. While 1,500 to 2,000 people would jam the market in summer, the farmers saw half that many people, or even fewer, on winter weekends.

“I remember thinking, the farmers, I wonder how they eat during these months,” Neft said in an interview. “There is nobody to buy their produce. They said, ‘A lot of people aren’t interested in turnips and parsnips and rutabagas and celery root. They don’t know how to fix it. Others don’t know what to do with broccoli and cauliflower and cabbages.’ ”

Neft began the project after lunching with a friend around Christmas in 2008. Neft served squash soup, greens, chicken, some mandarins and persimmons, and an apple pie for dessert – everything from the local farmers market.

Her friend expressed admiration for the menu and the source of the food.

“She said, ‘I don’t know how to go to the market and eat local every day.’ ”

So Neft decided to show her, and the rest of us, how it is done. Along with professional chef Laura Kenny, Neft hosted a dinner for four friends on the first Monday in January. On the menu: lamb shanks, carrots, German butterball mashed potatoes and apple pie.

Neft and Kenney did the same drill every Monday night for a year. The book is a collection of those menus, recipes and stories, organized by week in a way that makes it easy to follow or adapt. It is much more than a cookbook. The stories within it bring the region’s farms and food to life.

“One of the things that book does is really put a face to the people who produce the food that feeds the rest of us,” said Christine Turner, Placer County’s agriculture commissioner. Turner said she has seen a resurgence of interest in local foods.

“People are starting to ask a lot more questions about ‘Where is my food coming from? How is it being produced? What’s going into the production of that food? How far has it traveled?’ ” Turner said.

Karen Killebrew, president of PlacerGROWN, which promotes local food in the county, said the book has created a buzz that she hopes will translate into a better educated population.

“We had a huge wave of people moving into Placer County from other areas in the past 10 years, and a lot of those people didn’t understand what it meant to live in an agricultural zone,” Killebrew said.

As those people become more knowledgeable about locally grown foods, she said, they might also become advocates for policy that preserves local farming.

While the foods Neft features in the book are from the Placer County market, most of them are available throughout California and beyond at the same time of year. Neft hopes her book will become a model and push the local food movement to new heights.

“Right out our own back doors is healthy, fresh, in-season produce, every day of the year,” Neft said. “We should be eating that produce.”

This article also appeared in the June 2 2010 issue of the Sacramento Bee.

 

State Senate bans sport drinks in high schools

Published: May 27, 2010 | No Comments

The state Senate has approved a bill to ban the sale of sugar-sweetened sport drinks in the public schools during school hours.

The bill, SB 1255, would tighten a restriction that already forbids the sale of soft drinks but did not include electrolyte replacement beverages in the ban.

The author of the bill, Sen. Alex Padilla, called it a “common sense step” in the effort to address obesity in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also supports the bill, which now moves to the Assembly.

Childhood obesity is the primary cause of type-2 diabetes and other long-term health problems. Studies have found that greater consumption of sweetened beverages is associated with weight problems and obesity among children and adults.

Padilla said California Department of Public Health studies show that electrolyte replacement beverages are replacing sodas as the beverage of choice for school-age children. Instead of replacing soda with water and other healthier beverages, Padilla said, students are buying sport drinks. Eight of the top 10 beverages sold a la carte in California public high schools are electrolyte replacement beverages, he said.

 

Healthy eating, supplements, helped addicts kick drugs

Published: May 26, 2010 | No Comments

By Nik Bonovich

An innovative program that helps drug addicts retake control of their lives with healthy eating, stress reduction and natural supplements has been cut from the Sacramento Drug Court’s recovery program because of budget shortfalls.

But the court’s executive director, Berk Adrian, says the Community Addiction Recovery Association program was valuable and effective, and he is working hard to bring it back.

“It was both educational and tangible,” he said. “We are trying to change brain chemistry through changing their diet, stress reduction, sleeping habits and chiefly sobriety.”

A 12-month study performed by the Institute of Social Research at California State University, Sacramento tracked recidivism rates of drug court participants. The study found that 13 percent of drug court graduates were rearrested and convicted within 12 months of completing the treatment program. In comparison, 34 percent of clients who did not complete the program were rearrested and convicted within 12 months of leaving the program.

Clients in the drug court went through a four-phase program. The first phase consisted of the CARA nutrition program that lasted four to six weeks. Monday through Friday, clients were offered a frozen fruit-whey protein smoothie, completed a food-mood journal, and took classes on nutrition, supplements and cooking.

“When they tell you to eat right you start feeling good,” said Carlos Falero, 49. “Your body starts feeling good and you realize feeling (bad) isn’t the norm. I don’t have to feel tired for the rest of my life.”

The first phase is crucial. Some clients come to their first day in drug court high, homeless and depressed. Before these non-violent offenders can clean up their act, they need to be able to be attentive, think clearly, and focus.

“We were helping them to transition, to feel better, have less symptoms and less stress,” said Carolyn Rueben, CARA’s Executive Director. “They weren’t ready to talk to counselors. We needed them to feel comfortable to talk about deeper issues later.”

Eating healthy and taking nutritional supplements helped the clients get up in the morning and keep them motivated enough to attend drug court on a daily basis.

“The way you feel has a lot to do with your attitude. It is a big challenge to get sober,” said Fernando Romo, 40. “The healthy eating and supplements elevated me in the first 30 days to feel motivated.”

Vitamins that were given to clients included a multi-vitamin, B-complex vitamin, vitamin C. Clients were also given a fish oil.

In order to help a patient with any mood or motivation problems, clients took specific amino acids, the building blocks or protein. The amino acids used were tryptophan, 5-HTP, tyrosine, GABA, D-phenylalanine and DL-phenylalanine. Each amino acid works on a different brain chemical that can help a person feel better, similar to anti-depressants.

Tryptophan is a well-known amino acid because it is found in turkey. After eating a large meal with turkey many people complain that they are tired. This is because of the tryptophan provides an increase in serotonin and melatonin. Serotonin helps eliminate depression and anxiety, while melatonin helps us sleep. Tryptophan can be quite costly, so 5-HTP is a good substitute. 5-HTP is what tryptophan is naturally converted to before it becomes serotonin.

Tyrosine helps restore energy, motivation and focus and therefore it is best taken in the morning. GABA helps reduce stress and adrenaline overloads. Lastly, D-phenylalanine and DL-phenylalanine help increase endorphins for people that are too sensitive for life’s pains.

“When I was on detox it was hard to get out of bed and be and be on time,” Romo said. “I would take the vitamins and supplements and I started to have less dependency on the drugs.”

It is trial and error to decipher the exact amino acid and the dosage that is necessary for a patient, similar to how doctors prescribe anti-depressants. Patients go through an interview process to determine what their mood disorders are, what substances they are addicted to and how those substances affect them.

For example Brian Limerick, 34, used crystal meth as his drug of choice. But unlike most people, he said, “When I used the crystal meth it seemed to calm me down.” This would help nutritionists decide what amino acid was best suited for Limerick in his recovery.

If a person is craving heroin or marijuana to stop emotional or physical pain then you know you need to give them phenylalanine,” said Rueben. “If the person is using methamphetamines, which is a person craving stimulation, they need tyrosine.”

Clients are also taught about healthy eating and how food can affect your moods similar to illegal drugs. They were taught to watch how much processed foods they ate and what their sugar and flour intake was.

“I stopped eating fast good and sometime later I ate popcorn at a movie and I felt that heroin headache come back. It felt like I was coming down again,” said a client who wished to remain anonymous for employment reasons.

Sugar and flour are refined substances and not only are they the culprit for weight gain, but they can also be addictive substances that affect your mood. Nutritionists advocate eating healthy, natural, unprocessed foods, just the way Mother Nature made them. “When people eat sugar it increases their craving for sugar so they eat more food with sugar and eat less nutritious foods’” said Rueben.

 

Hospitals pressured to back more breastfeeding

Published: May 5, 2010 | Comments (2)

By Daniel Weintraub

California advocates for women and children are making a major push for breastfeeding and laying the groundwork for proposals in the Legislature that could require hospitals that deliver babies to reduce the number of newborns fed with bottled formula.

The campaign is coming from an association that represents the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC), which provides nutrition for low-income families and is the largest purchaser of baby formula in the state.

Registered Nurse Barb Hanson meets with new mother Phana Yon, 28, in the drop-in Lactation Center at Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center. Yon, who gave birth to her son three days ago, walked into the clinic to ask questions about breastfeeding. Photo from Kaiser Permanente.

Studies have shown that breastfeeding helps prevent a number of diseases and conditions, including childhood obesity. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 15
percent to 20 percent of obesity could be prevented through breastfeeding.

“It can’t cure everything, but it can help prevent a lot of acute and chronic disease,” said Karen Farley, a program manager for the association.

Bottle feeding is thought to contribute to obesity for several reasons.

Breastfeeding and formula are believed to have different effects on metabolism and hormones, including insulin, which helps regulate how much fat the body stores.

Breastfed babies also may be better at regulating their food intake. Mothers who cannot see how much milk their babies are getting are more likely to rely on the infant to signal when he or she is full, rather than feeding them a bottle until all the formula is gone.

“It’s kind of like cleaning your plate when you are already full,” Farley said. “Breastfed babies stop when they are no longer hungry.”

Citing data that show a wide disparity among hospitals in the number of women who feed their infants exclusively breast milk before taking their children home, the association asserts that much of that difference is due to practices that could be and should be changed.

The WIC program is trying to lead the way by giving new mothers incentives to breast feed, including extra food in a breastfeeding mom’s food package and breast pumps so that mothers who return to work can still feed their babies.

Baby Friendly Policies
Hospitals must follow these ten policies in order to be certified as “Baby Friendly.”
1. Maintain a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely
communicated to all health care staff.
2. Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement
this policy.
3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and
management of breastfeeding.
4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain
lactation, even if they are separated from their infants.
6. Give infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless
medically indicated.
7. Practice “rooming in” – allow mothers and infants to
remain together 24 hours a day.
8. Encourage unrestricted breastfeeding.
9. Give no pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and
refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

The group is also pushing hospitals to adopt a collection of “Baby Friendly” guidelines developed by the World Health Organization. The policies require more training of hospital staff, education of pregnant women about the benefits of breastfeeding, helping mothers initiate feeding within an hour of birth, and giving infants no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated.

Hospitals must also agree not to accept free or discounted formula from the manufacturers – a perk that advocates of breastfeeding believe makes hospitals more likely to use formula.

Sheree Kruckenberg, vice president of the California Hospital Association, said her members support breastfeeding but do not necessarily want to follow the “Baby Friendly” guidelines. Instead, she said, the association backs a separate set of model policies already recommended by the state.

“In order to qualify for the Baby Friendly status, there’s a lot of things that a hospital would have to do,” she said. “For some hospitals, they don’t do enough births to justify the expenditure.”

The bigger issue, Kruckenberg said, is that new mothers are usually in the hospital for less than 24 hours.

“The ability for a hospital to influence a mother’s decision is very short-lived,” she said. “Most mothers that come to us have predetermined whether they ae going to breast feed or not.”

That decision can be affected by cultural norms, socio-economic levels, a family’s support and whether or not a woman is going to return quickly to work.

“There are so many factors a mom takes into consideration,” she said. “We’re not able to influence their decisions.”

But many hospitals are trying. One is Kaiser Hospital in South Sacramento. Barb Hansen, a registered nurse there and assistant manager of health education, said the hospital started by adopting the model guidelines the state recommends and then found it easy to move on to the more involved Baby Friendly system.

That step required nurses to get 18 hours of training in how to help new mothers breast feed, and all staff, including doctors, had to have at least some training.

The hospital, which delivers about 200 babies a month, has large birthing rooms where mothers can keep their babies with them, and even mothers who have Caesarian sections typically have their babies with them within an hour. The hospital also discourages mothers from supplementing their milk with formula, which can distract a baby from nursing.

“The concept is that babies are born healthy and are wired to breast feed,” Hansen said. “They don’t need to be supplemented unless there is a medical indication.”

Hansen said some hospitals balk at giving up free formula from the manufacturers, but she believes it is wise to do so.

“You don’t have the formula reps coming into your hospital and offering education, free trips, free formula if the nurses have babies,” she said. “You remove that conflict of interest and that’s a huge hurdle if hospitals have to pay for that.”

Although Kruckenberg of the hospital association said cultural traditions often lead Hispanic women to prefer bottle-feeding, Hansen said those habits can be overcome with supportive hospital staff.

“Most Hispanic moms do breastfeed,” she said. “Understanding their beliefs and being supportive of their cultural beliefs helps.”

Statewide, records on the behavior of new mothers while still in the hospital show that 87 percent do some breastfeeding but only 43 percent breast feed exclusively. Among major counties, the rates for exclusive breast feeding range from a high of 76 percent in San Francisco to a low of 24 percent in Los Angeles County. At Kaiser in South Sacramento, the most recent numbers from the state, from 2007, show that 90 percent of new mothers breastfeed and 71 percent do so exclusively. Those numbers are likely higher today.

Laurie True, executive director of the WIC Association, said the group will probably push soon for legislation requiring any hospital that is reimbursed by Medi-Cal for delivering babies to follow the Baby Friendly guidelines.

“Breast feeding is a learned skill,” she said. “It’s not easy. It needs a lot of support. It needs to be built into the health care system.”

 

Santa Clara to restrict linking of toys, unhealthy food

Published: April 27, 2010 | No Comments

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has given tentative approval to an ordinance that would restrict the ability of restaurants to use toys or other incentives to entice children into eating meals that are high in fat, sugar, and calories. The ordinance is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.

According to county Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the ordinance, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that in 2006, restaurants sold 1.2 billion meals accompanied by toys to children under 12. A 2008 study by the Center for Since in the Public Interest found that 10 out of 12 meals exceeding the recommended number of calories for children came with toys, according to Yeager.

“This ordinance levels the playing field,” Yeager said. “It helps parents make the choices they want for their children without toys and other freebies luring them toward food that fails to meet basic nutritional standards.”

The ordinance, which would apply only in the unincorporated areas of the county, would allow restaurants to offer toys and other incentives as long as the food they come with meets national nutritional criteria for children.

Food would be considered unhealthy if it had more than 120 calories for a beverage, 200 for a single food item or 485 for a meal) excessive sodium (480 mg for a single food item or 600 mg for a meal), excessive fat (more than 35 percent of total calories from fat), or excessive sugar (more than 10 percent of calories from added sweeteners.) The criteria are based on standards for children’s health created by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and recommendations for children’s food published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

The ordinance will not go into effect until the board of supervisors gives it final approval, scheduled for a May 11 meeting.

 

Sacramento’s Oak Park to get first farmer’s market

Published: April 21, 2010 | No Comments

By Paul Towers

The Sacramento neighborhood of Oak Park is getting its first farmer’s market, highlighting the need for healthy food in one of the region’s most underserved neighborhoods.

“Healthy food produces healthy communities,” said Joany Titherington, coordinator of the Oak Park Farmer’s Market. “We honor the spirit of Earth Day by ensuring that Sacramento residents nourish themselves and the planet through local and healthy food.”

The statistics in Sacramento County are overwhelming. Less than half of the County’s children eat the appropriate amount of fruit and vegetables each day and more than 30 percent of the county’s children are considered overweight. These problems are magnified in Oak Park by the lack of access to fresh and healthy food, and the preponderance of access to unhealthy food.

As a result of these concerns, community leaders are launching the Oak Park Farmer’s Market to provide weekly local access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The Farmers Market will be held on Saturday mornings, beginning May 15, at 34th and Broadway, across from Old Soul Coffeehouse. The Farmers Market is a project of NeighborWorks® Sacramento, developed in partnership with community residents.

In addition, in the past few months, community garden advocates, backyard growers, and fresh produce sellers have loosely formed the Oak Park Food Collaborative. The group intends to make Oak Park, often characterized as a dangerous neighborhood, the sustainable food center of the Sacramento Region.

 

Between farm and table, a broken chain

Published: March 28, 2010 | No Comments

By Daniel Weintraub

After years of being urged to “eat fresh, eat local,” residents of the Sacramento region are responding. From neighborhood dinner tables to big institutional kitchens, locally grown foods are in high demand.

But every spring, locally grown produce is rotting in the fields of the small family-run farms around the region.

Between that abundant supply and the strong demand, the market has broken down. There is no good way to get those crops from the farms to the people who want them at a price consumers are willing to pay.

Photo from Sacrmento Bee.


Bob Corshen wants to fix that.

Corshen is director of local foods for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, based in Davis. The alliance and its partners are about to build the link that will close the gap in the local food supply chain. At the same time, they may be putting into place the first piece of a far-reaching social mission to bring more fresh foods into the region’s low-income communities.

The new link in the food distribution chain will be known as an “aggregation hub.” But that is really just a fancy name for a cold-storage warehouse.

Farmers will bring their harvests to the hub. A contractor working for the alliance will inspect those small shipments of strawberries or asparagus or carrots and combine them to fill the larger orders that come from the customers. Then those boxes – identified as locally grown and traceable by county and farm — will be sent into the community aboard the same trucks that already carry produce from around the world.

If all goes as planned, the small farmers will enlarge their markets and their profits. Sacramento shoppers and diners will get the local foods they want. Distributors will have a way to meet the demands of their customers. And the contractor managing the distribution hub will earn money for its role in making it all possible.

Corshen’s group is behind the “buy fresh, buy local” campaign that is now working better than anyone had hoped. Suddenly local food is on top of everyone’s wish list.

“We are involved in this for the simple reason that this whole concept of local foods is booming,” Corshen said.

Corshen said a recent issue of Packer Magazine, which he calls the “bible” for the food distribution industry, asked readers which word had more influence on their customers: organic, sustainable, or local. Local won in a landslide.

“All in the sudden the distributors give a damn,” he said. “They realize there is a need for it.”

The problem is that the existing system for distributing fresh produce in the region is built for large-scale shipments. It is too time consuming, and too expensive, for produce distributors to deal with dozens of small and sometimes unreliable farms when they could get the same product in one large lot from a farm anywhere in the world. And get it, in many cases, for less money.

“When we go to market, we have to have a consistent supply,” said Nate Parks., vice president of sales for Durham-based ProPacific, a major produce distributor in Northern California. “I have to go to my customers and say I have these 35 or 40 items, and I have them consistently for you.

“A lot of times with local farmers, his crop may come out for a week straight, and then on day 8 he is out of product. It’s hard for distributors to switch gears and identify another source. The distribution hub is a great way for us to have that consistent supply chain lined up before we go to market.”

The alliance tried a similar project a few years ago, known as the Sacramento Growers Collaborative. Working with a beat-up van, the collaborative tried to pick up boxes of locally grown produce from small farmers and distribute them to customers. But neither the farmers nor the distribution network proved reliable enough to survive.

The key difference with the aggregation hub is that it will not try to replicate the existing distribution network. Instead, it will piggy back on top of it.

“Those distributors already have trucks on the road,” Corshen said. ”They are already delivering to schools, hospitals, universities and restaurants.”

Smith Panh grows strawberries on a tiny plot of less than 2 acres that he leases from a friend in Antelope. He sells most of his berries at a roadside stand and was able to sell some to a local school last year. But not all of them.

“I had a lot I could not sell,” he said. “I just had to leave them in the field.”

This year he is starting fewer plants to reduce his waste. But he would rather grow more and sell them all.

The same is true for Dennis Xiong, who grows strawberries on 4 acres near the corner of Jackson Road and Sunrise Boulevard. He sells his harvest at a roadside farm stand. But in May and June, when his berry plants are bursting with ripe fruit, he often cannot sell them all and watches as they rot in the fields. Last year, when the berries were at their peak, he was able to sell only about half of his potential harvest.

“I want to sell outside, but I don’t know where to go,” he said.

Before moving to Sacramento, Xiong grew strawberries in Merced County. There, he had far more land and more production. But there was a company that would buy any berries he did not sell at his stand. He does not have the same advantage here. A distribution hub for small family farmers, he said, would be a huge help for him.

“That would be great,” he said.

Access to markets is just one hurdle Southeast Asian American farmers confront. The language barrier is another, according to Jennifer Sowerwine, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who works with this group of growers.

Many of the strawberry farmers are ethnic Mien. The vegetable farmers are mostly Hmong.

“They don’t have the skills or the know-how in our California food culture and system to approach a potential customer, present their product and negotiate a fair price,” said Sowerwine.

One potential customer that has gone largely unserved because of these barriers is the Sacramento City School District. District spokesman Gabe Ross said the city schools have been trying to bring more local foods onto school menus and would welcome a distribution hub that would make that task easier.

“It’s a conversation our food service staff has been having over the last couple of years,” Ross said. “The issue in the past has always been distribution, from a logistical standpoint. If there is a way to work those issues out, absolutely, this is something we would love to explore.”

Unlike similar hubs opening in Los Angeles and Oakland, the Sacramento hub is likely to have an additional element: a public service mission aimed at bringing more fresh food to low-income communities, educating those communities about whole foods and nutrition, and employing youth who would otherwise be jobless. The expanded hub might also have cleaning and processing facilities so that the produce can be shipped in ready-to-use bags that large institutions, such as schools and hospitals, prefer.

That part of the project is being funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and managed by Soilborn Farms, an urban farm with land near the American River in Rancho Cordova.

Shawn Harrison, a founder and director of Soilborn, envisions a food center that will serve farm stands in urban neighborhoods, farmers markets, corner stores and food box programs that deliver fresh produce directly to peoples’ doors.

“For these underserved communities, what the food hub does is one, give us the ability to source local, and then it creates momentum around these kinds of incubator mechanisms, to get food into the community,” Harrison said.

But Harrison does not see this as something only for low-income communities. He and others would like the project to be the beginning of a long-term reversal in the trend toward shipping locally grown food out of the region while importing most of the food that Sacramentans eat.

More local consumption of local food would reduce transportation costs and pollution while freeing more farmers from the wild swings of the international commodity markets.

“This isn’t something that is going to happen over a year,” Harrison said. “This is a 20-year process where we begin to shift the food that we have the ability to grow in this region, that has typically gone out, we can shift it to come back in.

“Ultimately, people living in the Sacramento region will more than not be getting food from places where they know where it is coming from and they know the quality of that food. That will be their preference and they will be able to do it in an affordable manner, in an equitable manner.”

 
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