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Recently tomato farmers from across the Bay State converged on Boston City Hall Plaza seeking top tomato bragging rights at the 26^th Annual Tomato Festival.  I joined a panel of food writers, chefs, cookbook authors, grocers, and state officials as we readied our score sheets.

Cross-Posted from the Let's Move! Blog

Have you ever wanted fresh, local produce but didn’t know how to find the nearest farmers market?  The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) makes it easy with the National Farmers Market search engine, which lists more than 6,100 markets across the nation.  Markets can be searched by name, city, zip code, and several other keyword fields.

Chicago in August concluded our USDA Community Roundtable tour, where our Food and Nutrition Service and Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships met with almost 100 community and state partners to discuss how to improve access to SNAP at a time of growing need for food throughout the country. There my colleague Max Finberg, Director of the Center, and I met with wonderful people all over the city dedicated to fighting hunger. From the South Side to the West Side, we shared ideas with churches and other faith-based organizations, community advocates, food banks, outreach workers, school districts, community hospitals and clinics, and our state partners to discuss how to improve access to SNAP and our other fourteen USDA nutrition assistance programs.

Cross-Posted from the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Blog

I recently participated in the launch of a Fruit and Veggie Rx program in Portland, Maine.  It is a promising health initiative, led by the nonprofit Wholesome Wave, that allows physicians to track the overall well-being of at-risk patients after prescribing more fruits and vegetables to family diets.  In Portland, the pilot will focus on Somali refugee women at extremely high risk for diabetes as they transition to healthful diets. The initiative is a good example of partners working together to encourage and support efforts to address both hunger and obesity in our communities.  Farmers markets can and are playing a key role in this effort.

One of our Nation's most pressing health challenges today is obesity with one in three children in America either overweight or obese.  Low-income individuals are particularly at-risk.  That’s why First Lady Michelle Obama launched Let’s Move! The campaign mobilizes the combined resources of the federal government, state and local governments, foundations, business and nonprofit organizations to help solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight and live healthier lives.

Written by Audrey Rowe, USDA Deputy Administrator of Special Nutrition Programs

I recently had the honor of speaking at the National Urban League Centennial Conference in Washington DC.  The National Urban League is a partner in our efforts to combat obesity and hunger, particularly in African American communities.  I was happy to have the opportunity to explain the role USDA’s nutrition assistance programs play in combating obesity and hunger and to emphasize the need for us to work collaboratively to solve these issues.

By Kevin Concannon, Under Secretary

I recently spoke at the BIG TEN conference in Minneapolis. The BIG TEN is a USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) sponsored event focused on improving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) performance at the state and local level. Participants are from the Midwest States: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.  In the past few years, they’ve worked with decreasing resources while managing an increasing workload. So when I walked into a room full of dancing and cheering human service workers, I was taken aback. The energy was just incredible!

By Lisa Pino, Deputy Administrator for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

The Latino community faces dual challenges when it comes to nutrition since hunger and obesity can often co-exist. Hispanics in the U.S. have higher rates of both food insecurity and obesity. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service is addressing the challenges through its 15 nutrition assistance programs, many of which include nutrition education.

The USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships co-hosted with USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and USDA FNS Western Regional Office Administrator Allen Ng, another successful community roundtable. More than 100 people attended, including State, county, and city leaders; promotoras; and representatives from faith-based organizations, community groups, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles Food Bank, area hospitals, and the Mexican Consulate. Special guests included California Endowment Director Dr. Beatriz Solis and the legendary farmworkers’ advocate Dolores Huerta. Panelists included John A. Wagner, Director of the California Department of Social Services, and Philip Browning, Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services.

The Colorado Farmers Market Association, the City Heights Open Air & Certified Farmers Market in San Diego, Calif. and Greenmarket in New York City did it with help of the Farmers Market Promotion Program.