Adagio Health and coordinators plan to expand food accessibility
CRANBERRY TWP — Regional leaders, policymakers and community partners met at a stakeholder meeting hosted by Adagio Health on Thursday, March 5, with a common goal of lowering the rate of food insecurity in Pennsylvania.
The event, held at Cranberry Highlands Golf Course, brought a networking opportunity to local farmers and business owners who are looking to get involved in the programs Adagio provides, including the Expanding Access to Farm Fresh Produce project and the Women, Infants, and Children program.
Adagio is addressing multiple causes of food insecurity, one of which is transportation. The solution Adagio provides to this barrier is the program’s mobile clinics. Across the state, there are 11 mobile clinics that service 46 of 67 counties.
“We are trying to find where these participants are. We’re trying to take the services to the participants,” Mark Shirk with Women, Infants, and Children said.
Solving problems such as food deserts requires coordination between many people and organizations. In an attempt to stimulate the economy and get people fed, Adagio partners with local farmers to acquire fresh, healthy, Pennsylvania-grown produce for its participants.
Heidi Secord, the state’s deputy secretary for Farm, Food and Market Access, spoke to the importance of the local supply chain.
“It strengthens local agriculture, expands healthy food access and builds that trust that’s needed between producers and communities.” Secord said.
One of these farms is Dillner Family Farms, a fourth-generation operation in Gibsonia. Robin Dillner spoke about their partnership and participation in the pop-up farmers markets, which gets produce to those areas and groups of people that don’t have access to them. Adagio’s people get that product farther than a smaller family farm would be able to on its own.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture is also working toward ending food insecurity and partnering with Adagio and other agencies while also setting up its own programs and focuses.
Secord spoke about the department’s investment in value-added processing and stronger local supply chains.
She said the department is focusing on “expanded meat processing capacity, dairy innovation, infrastructure that supports small and midsize producers, market diversification opportunities and those regional food hubs.”
Also attending the event was Dawn Plummer, director of the Pennsylvania Food Policy Council, who spoke about the Pennsylvania Food Action Plan and its priorities: strengthening food security, improving public health and nutrition, fostering local and regional food infrastructure, reducing food waste, building food system resilience and strengthening coordination and system alignment.
Part of the step of strengthening coordination is the advisory committee of 16 stakeholder seats Plummer spoke about.
“That’s really the heart and soul of food policy councils, is really bringing a diverse group of people from all of the different perspectives across the food system into one conversation,” she said.
This article was updated Friday to say the 11 mobile clinics service 46 of 67 counties across the state.
