In the last episode I spoke with Amy Scherber, the founder of Amy's Bread, author and winner of numerous awards in culinary and business fields, about the food waste in USA. And in this episode I'm honored to have a guest, whose whole organization's mission is to end hunger and food waste in our lifetime by connecting surplus to food banks across the country. Julia DeSantis is the Director of Sustainability for The Farmlink Project, a student-led movement that has provided over 130 million pounds of nutritious food to communities facing hunger in the United States.

Farmlink started out of college dorm rooms at Brown and Stanford University during the pandemic as a small group of students rented Uhaul trucks to connect farmers with surplus to their local food bank. The project became an overnight sensation, going nationwide with an entirely volunteer movement of thousands of students delivering millions of meals to the families that needed them most. Julia’s role focuses on the quantification, verification, and communication of the climate impact of food waste and food recovery in the United States. Given that food waste accounts for nearly 1/10th of global emissions, a project like Farmlink with sustainability focused leaders like Julia has the opportunity to effectively mitigate planetary warming, and reshape our trajectory toward a more accessible and sustainable food future.
No one should have to go to bed hungry while perfectly viable produce goes to waste. This produce shouldn’t have to be “rescued” from rotting in fields or being sent to the landfill, either; why were we ever letting this produce go to waste in the first place? These are systemic issues that our society needs to address. In a perfect world, The Farmlink Project wouldn’t need to exist—systems would be in place to streamline the supply chain so that zero percent, rather than 30 to 40 percent, of food grown in the United States went to waste. For now, The Farmlink Project is acting as the “link” connecting the broken supply chains in the agricultural and food access industries. Their long-term goal is to set up infrastructure which will render our work obsolete. If there were no food waste, if there were no hungry people lining up outside understocked and underfunded food banks, there would be no need for The Farmlink Project.

Here are just a few alarming statistics we have about the food waste: 1. $161 billion worth of food is wasted annually, 2. The money lost from 2 years of food waste in the U.S. could eradicate global hunger and malnutrition for an entire year, 3. The average distance food moves from farm to distribution center is 1500 miles in the U.S., 4. In the United States, agricultural land covers 140 million acres, equal to 106 million football fields, 5. The energy lost from food waste in the United States is capable of powering more than 50 million U.S. homes. That's nearly 36% of all homes. From the farmers, packers, and distributors... to the truck drivers, fork lifters, and shippers... to the food banks, community organizers, and volunteers... It takes a whole village to bring food to our tables, 6. 5.9 trillion gallons of water is wasted every year from food loss and waste alone. That's the same amount of water 50 million of homes use every year.
Julia DeSantis, an activator with an unwavering passion for climate action is here to talk to me how they are planning to do so. Julia's academic journey was driven by her realization that her generation urgently needs to embrace Climate Consciousness to combat climate change effectively.

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