Oregon’s farmers continue to suffer losses from drought, heat waves, wildfire and other climate-related challenges. Traditional crop insurance and relief programs often don’t meet the needs of small-scale farmers who grow a wide variety of crops and serve diverse markets. Historically underserved farmers also face persistent barriers to accessing these programs.
Many organizations across Oregon support small-scale farmers, but none individually can solve these systemic access issues. In response, Lauren Gwin, director of the Center for Resilient Agriculture & Food Systems and Extension community food systems specialist at Oregon State University, helped found the Oregon Community Food Systems Network (OCFSN) in 2015.
Food hubs emphasize sustainable practices, fair prices and community food security.
The network now includes more than 60 member organizations statewide. Gwin has been a key leader in building and maintaining the infrastructure essential to OCFSN’s collaborative efforts. The Center for Resilient Agriculture & Food Systems, which houses nine programs focused on different aspects of food and agricultural systems, acts as a backbone organization for OCFSN alongside the Oregon Food Bank, providing additional logistical and strategic support to the organization.
One of OCFSN’s initiatives is the Farming for the Future working group, which supports sustainable, regenerative farmers and ranchers who are often left out of traditional assistance programs. Following historic climate events in 2021, the Oregon Legislature awarded OCFSN $1.5 million to create a drought-relief grant program for small-scale and historically underserved farmers who did not qualify for other federal and state disaster relief programs.
OCFSN awarded grants to 108 farmers, 38% of whom identified as Black, Indigenous or other people of color. Awards averaged $13,186, with a cap of $30,000, and payments were distributed within 30 days of application deadlines.
OCFSN also addresses broader food system challenges. Food hubs — businesses and nonprofit organizations that aggregate, distribute, and market locally grown foods — help connect small- and mid-scale producers to wholesale and institutional markets.
Food hubs emphasize sustainable practices, fair prices and community food security but face structural barriers that make financial sustainability difficult. Increasingly, public support recognizes their importance to food system resilience. In 2019, Gwin started the Oregon Food Hub Network as a community of practice. In 2020, when demand for local, farm-direct food skyrocketed, food hubs helped make those connections.
In 2023, Gwin and the Food Hub Network completed a two-year U.S. Department of Agriculture Regional Food Systems Partnership planning grant, working with eight of Oregon’s leading food hubs to identify shared infrastructure needs and strategies for resilience to climate variability, good jobs and social equity. Their assessment identified three top priorities: worker safety, group health insurance and having more cold storage, especially refrigerated trucks, available for hubs to lease to other hubs in emergencies.
OCFSN turned these results into recommendations for the Oregon Legislature, resulting in $1.5 million in funding for Food Hub Worker Safety and Infrastructure Grants, in addition to renewed, increased funding for the Disaster Resilience Grants Program for farmers and ranchers.
In 2024, the first round of grants awarded $700,000 to 20 food hubs and regional infrastructure projects across Oregon. Funding supported purchases such as refrigerated vehicles, walk-in coolers, ventilation systems, commercial cooking equipment, worker safety gear and efficiency equipment.
A food hub grantee shared, “The funding will greatly increase the capacity of our food hub, Oregon’s smallest, most remote food hub. Increased capacity means more people in Wallowa and Union counties accessing high-quality, nutrient-dense food grown by their neighbors. It means paying local farmers and ranchers a living wage.”
Additionally, the Oregon Food Hub Network launched four new training and technical assistance programs: Program Staff Mentorship & Leadership, Network Recruitment & Engagement Coordination with a focus on underserved communities, High Volume Food Hub technical assistance and Worker Safety assessments and training.
