The smells of spiced beef, stewed greens and seasoned rice waft through the Western Carolina University Health and Human Services building.
Chef Anna Bello spent the day cooking these dishes for EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems as the Cooking and Nutrition Education Coordinator.
“This is the stewed beer with vegetables. It's very similar to the national dish of Venezuela, which is where my family is from. So we call it carne mechada, ” Bello said as she shared the menu for the evening with a crowd of community members with Vecinos.
Vecinos provides bilingual medical care and other services for uninsured and underinsured people particularly farmworkers in the state’s westernmost counties.
EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systemshas partnered with Vecinos for more han two years to share fresh food and Chef Anna’s recipes with local communities though the federally funded Local Food Assistance Program.
Bello shared insights on nutrition and how she prepares the food.
“And at the end of the day everyone sits down - Vecinos staff, farmworkers and Anna to share a mealand build that community and that relationship,” Jess Mrugala, local foods coordinator, said.
The fresh fruits, vegetables and meat come from WNC Farm to Table, established in Sylva by Lisa McBride.
“We have about 15 local farmers that we get produce from and meats and other things like that," McBride said. "For me, this is something that kind of connects dots between what keeping local farmers farming and also providing local food for everyone and keeping it affordable for people and actually providing the healthiest options for everybody.”
The local food assistance project is just one of many local food projects that EmPOWERing Mountain Foods Systems is working on, Executive Director Laura Lauffer said.
“We will be looking at both infrastructure needs at food hubs and farmers and commercial kitchens. You know, that's something that we definitely learned through our work with the food truck community,” Lauffer said, referencing food truck trainings that the organization held in 2022.
The EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems program started with a 2019 food assessment to understand the region. In August 2020, it plotted out farms and food access.
At the end of 2023, the organization received more than $2 million in grant funding. That includes almost $1.2 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission, and a matching grant from Dogwood Health Trust, WNC Bridge Foundation community partners, and the NC State Cooperative Extension. The project is a part of NC State’s Center for Environmental Farming Systems.
Farms, farmers markets and other parts of the local food process make up food systems, Lauffer explained. The program will be working with five unique food hubs across the region.
“We're really focusing on regional food hubs and farmers and food businesses that supply to those food hubs — to try to support and develop those hubs,” Lauffer said. The work includes helping to fill gaps in those systems such as cold storage, transportation, marketing, and business support.
Lauffer said a lot has changed since the last food and farm assessment in 2019. For example, during the pandemic, storage became a big need across the region. When restaurants and stores shut down, farmers needed to act fast to save the food that would have been sold. Many also started selling more locally because of supply chain issues.
“The food hub expanded a lot during Covid, right? It was a way that farmers could get their product out. And so that has definitely changed how food hubs work, I think has expanded in the past few years during the Covid epidemic,” Lauffer said.
EmPOWERing Mountain Foods Systems, which originally focused on the seven westernmost counties, will now expand to 12 counties. The coverage area includes Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian farmers on the Qualla Boundary and in Cherokee and Graham counties, as well as Jackson, Swain, Burke, Mitchell, Haywood, Cleveland, Rutherford, Watauga, Buncombe, Madison, McDowell and Mitchell counties.
With its new grant funding, EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems will conduct a new regional assessment to be released in 2025.
