Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program 2014 Grant Program Evaluation: Final Report

Abstract

The Farmers Market and Local Foods Promotion Program (FMLFPP) funds projects across the United States, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia to increase access to and consumption of local foods. As part of this overarching goal, the program also supports training and technical assistance for direct-to-consumer outlets and local food businesses with the intent of developing or expanding market opportunities and intermediary functions such as aggregation, storage and distribution in the local food supply chain. Administered by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the program awarded 376 projects totaling more than $27 million in 2014. AMS established a cooperative agreement with the Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation at Kansas State University (KSU) to conduct a program evaluation of the 2014 grant projects. The evaluation had 3 primary objectives: 1) Describe successful outcomes and evidence supporting this attribution; 2) Illustrate the impact on the local food industry’s capacity regionally and nationally; and 3) Identify barriers that prevent the Program from addressing its primary purpose. The program evaluation incorporates quantitative and qualitative data gathered from the final performance reports (100 randomly selected reports manually reviewed, 355 reports5 reviewed by qualitative data software) and survey responses from 245 project managers (69% response rate). Final performance reports identified project impact immediately after grant project completion. A follow-up survey conducted by KSU in February, 2018, to project managers compiled projects’ long-term impacts. This report provides comprehensive findings from the review of the 2014 projects’ Final performance reports as well as the survey responses. The findings summarize the impact of projects’ challenges, and lessons learned by program managers and AMS staff. Supporting data and documentation are available in the appendices as noted.