thank you to everyone who is joining us
today for a webinar on TEFAP farm to
Food Bank projects my name is Rachel
Schoenian and I'm a program analyst within
USDA's food distribution division and
I'm joined by my colleague Polly
Fairfield who is also a program analyst
with food distribution we are excited to
provide some long-awaited guidance on
funding and processes related to TEFAP
farm to Food Bank projects in fiscal
year 2020 on this first slide you'll see
a list of questions that we would like
to address during the presentation first
where can I find the requirements
associated with implementing a farm to
food bank project to answer that question
we are going to take a look at recently
published legislation regulations and
policy memoranda that govern Farm to
food bank projects second we will look
to define what a Farm to Food Bank
project is specifically by looking at
the regulatory definition of a project
the required and allowable project
partners and several nuances of Farm to
Food Bank project funding after Polly
will explain how to receive project
funding in fiscal year 2020 she will
discuss how and when to submit a state
plan amendment what kind of match
requirement is associated with the
funding and when final allocations will
take place Polly will also cover your
responsibilities as a state agency in
obligating and reporting on funds and
after we will go over some frequently
asked questions that we've received
about Farm to Food Bank projects already
where can I find the requirements or in
other words where did this all start
section 4018 of the Agriculture
Improvement Act of 2018 outlined a new
funding source for TEFAP state agencies to pay
for projects to harvest process package
or transport commodities donated by
agricultural producers processors or
distributors for use by emergency
feeding organizations these projects are
known as Farm to Food Bank projects and
the farm bill authorized about four
million dollars annually for the project
nationally through fiscal year 2023
after the farm bill authorizing language
was established FNS published a
final rule on October 4th 2019 titled
the emergency food assistance program
implementation of the agriculture
Improvement Act of 2018 this rule
codified farm to food bank project funding and processes in
TEFAP regulations at 7 CFR 251.6 A and
251 point 10 J as you are aware we have
also recently published a guidance memo
about farm to Food Bank projects which
provides further details about funding
and processes we encourage you to read
through that memo in detail if you
haven't yet already done so and looking
at what kinds of projects and
initiatives you can fund with Farm to
Food Bank project funding there are
three main things to keep in mind your
project idea and the purpose of that
project the partners you will work with
and the tangible or intangible items that
you will spend project funds on or the
use of funds a project funded by farm to
Food Bank funding must meet the
regulatory definition at 7 CFR 251.10
J which is written in full on the slide
looking at that first part of the
definition you'll see that projects must
be to harvest process package or
transport donated foods
thus the donated foods in question must
be originally unharvested unprocessed or
unpackaged next focusing in on the word
donated donated foods in the context of
Farm to Food Bank means privately
donated food farm to food bank project
funds may not be used for USDA foods
further the foods must be donated by
specific entities the definition
outlines that food must be donated by
agricultural producers processors or
distributors now moving to the last
several lines of the definition you will
see that the donated foods that are
harvested processed packaged and
transported with project funds must be
intended for use by emergency feeding
organizations it is important to ensure
that any projects funded meet all parts
of this definition another
factor to consider in forming or
selecting projects is the purpose of the
project or initiative 7 CFR 251.10 j 3
outlines that Farm to Food Bank projects
must have a specific purpose or in
actuality three purposes projects must
be intended to one reduce food waste at
the agricultural production processing
or distribution level through the
donation of food to provide food to
individuals in need and three build
relationships between agricultural
producers processors and distributors
and emergency feeding organizations
through the donation of food the
project's must do all three of these
things in order to receive farm to Food
Bank funding the last factor to consider 
in forming or selecting projects is
project partners all the Farm to food bank
projects must be carried out in
partnership with one or more TEFAP
emergency feeding organizations located
in your state this requirement is
outlined at 7 CFR 251.6
a 5 note that states must have a TEFAP
agreement in place with any selected efo
before the start of a project however
states are welcome to sign new
agreements with EFOs to carry out a farm
to Food Bank project or to partner with
efos who do not regularly distribute
TEFAP foods states are required to list
these partner EFOs in their state plan
amendment this list only needs to
include the efos that are managing the
farm to Food Bank project in partnership
with the state other EFOs may also be
involved in the project FNS also
encourages States to partner with other
TEFAP state agencies to maximize the
use of the food donated in a Farm to
Food Bank project if you choose to do so
you'll need to establish a written
agreement between your two state
agencies before we go into how to
receive funding there are a few things
we would like to note about the use of
funds first funds can be applied to
new initiatives or to existing projects
you also do not have to fully fund a
project with the funding received farm
to Food Bank funds can be used to
supplement a project or initiative that
is also funded by other sources
similarly you can use funds to support
multiple projects or have multiple
initiatives combined to form one overall
project and as I mentioned before and
just as a reminder about the project
definition that we covered earlier Farm
to Food Bank project funds cannot be
used to harvest process package or
transport USDA foods they must be used
exclusively for privately donated food
this slide is just a reminder about the
project definition that we covered
earlier Farm to Food Bank project
funding cannot be used to purchase food
funds can only be used to pay for the
harvesting processing packaging or
transportation of foods that were
donated in your state plan amendment you
will need to explain how your
initiatives meet the regulatory 
definition of a farm to food bank
project anything that meets that
definition is fair game and can be
supported with project funding we do not
want to limit creativity by providing
definitive examples of what a farm to
food bank project could be if you have
any questions about whether something
meets the regulatory definition we
encourage you to consult with your FNS
regional office prior to submitting your
state plan amendment for approval i'm
now going to turn things over to polly
who will discuss how to receive funding
in fiscal year 2020 thanks Rachel so now
that Rachel's informed us all what a farm
to Food Bank project is I'm going to
talk about how you can receive funding
for these projects as Rachel mentioned
we released a memo early last week that
provided guidance on Farm to Food Bank
projects in that memo we listed what we
are calling the initial potential
allocation for each state agency for
fiscal year 2020 so if you look at your
allocation in the memo you should have
an idea of the scale of a new project or
contribution to existing projects and
this initial minimum allocation was
calculated using our TEFAP funding
formula found at 251 point 3 H but to
actually access that funding states must
submit an amendment to their TEFAP
state plan that describes how the funds
will be used and how these projects meet
the regulatory definition that Rachel
discussed earlier the state plan
amendment must include all requirements
related to the projects that are listed
in a regulation at 7 CFR 251.6 A
and in our guidance memo we provided an
example state plan amendment which can
be used by you all to amend your state
plan we want the state plan amendment to
be simple and straightforward since we
understand the unpredictability of Farm
to Food Bank projects you might not know
in advance what foods will be donated in
a year
what specific things the funds will
actually be spent on so all we are really
looking for is a high-level overview of
your project and for fiscal year 2020
the state plan amendments should be
submitted to your regional office by
March 31st of this year and I know so
far we've only talked about fiscal year
2020 in this webinar but I did want to
let everyone know that you will need to
submit a new state plan amendment each
year if you're looking to fund a project
for multiple years or the same project
each year so once the March 31st
deadline has passed and we have received all
state plan amendments FNS will review
and approve the amendments that meet the
regulatory requirements that Rachel
covered earlier and we definitely
encourage you to work with your regional
office before submitting the state plan
to ensure that those regulatory
requirements are met based on the amount
of state plan amendments that we receive
we'll get a full list of states and then
be able to calculate each state's final
allocation amounts if any state does not
submit a state plan or a state submits a
plan for a project less than its initial
potential allocation those leftover
funds will be reallocated to states that
have submitted an approved state plan
amendment and that have also accepted
their full initial allocation of funds and
again these additional funds or the
leftover funds will be allocated using
the same method that was used initially
the TEFAP funding formula this means that
you may receive more funds than your
initial potential allocation and your
total will be based on the level of
interest in farm to food bank project
funding nationwide we estimate that the
final allocation of funds to state
agencies will take take place sometime
in mid April of this year for those
state agencies that do receive farm to
Food Bank project funds there will be a
match requirement and that requirement
is outlined in 251 point 10 all times a
food bank project funds must be matched
with either cash or in-kind donations
and this match can come from either the
state agency or one or more of the
partner efo allowable matches mirror
regular TEFAP administrative fund
allowable matches you can find the
description of those allowable matches
at 7 CFR 251.9
C and 251.10 j 4 and we also covered
the match requirement in our guidance
memo just as an example some in-kind
matches could include volunteer time to
glean a field of food use of efo trucks
to transport privately donated juice or
pallets and forklifts that are used to
move these foods for cash matching some
again some examples could include paying
processing costs transportation costs or
staff time of a producer to harvest the
privately donated food
and as with regular TEFAP matching
the match for farm to food bank that funds
cannot come from other federal sources
and justified we are asking for a
high-level description of how the match
will be met in your state plan amendment
next I'm going to cover what your
responsibilities will be once you
actually receive these funds so first
what's the timeline for actually
spending these funds these funds will be
available to obligate for one year from
the date that the funds are allocated to
you and as I mentioned we're planning
for the date of allocation for this year
to be around mid-april and note that the
timeline does not align with the fiscal
year it will be one full year from the
date that you actually get the funds but
if a state is unable to obligate all
funds within this one year period of
performance we may reallocate those
funds to other state agencies using the
same TEFAP funding formula that was
used initially and finally you will have
to report on the use of these funds any
states that received farm to Food Bank
project funds will need to submit the
sf-425 report to the regional office
twice during the period of performance
the first report will be due mid-year
within the seventh month of the period
of performance for 30 days after the
six-month mark and the second report
will be due 90 days after the end of the
period of performance and now we're
going to move into our section of
frequently asked questions about farm to
Food Bank projects these are general
questions that we've received that are
applicable to everyone but if you have a
specific idea or question about a farm
to food bank project for the potential
uses of these funds we recommend that
you go to your regional office so they
can answer them individually so for our
first frequently asked question can only
food banks partner with the state since
these are called Farm to Food Bank
projects so the answer to that one is no
any emergency feeding organization can
partner with the state on a farm to Food
Bank project our next question can
states give farm to food bank funds
directly to a food bank Association
farm to food bank projects must be
carried out in partnership with one or
more EFOs located in the state per the
tefap regulations an EFO is defined as
an eligible recipient agency which
provides nutrition assistance to relieve
situations of emergency in distress
through the provision of food to needy
persons including low-income and
unemployed persons if the food bank
association qualifies as an EFO
according to this definition the state
could partner with them on a farm to
Food Bank project if the food bank
Association does not qualify as an EFO
according to that definition they are
not precluded from involvement in a farm to
food bank project Food Bank associations
can still receive money from a state or
its partner efo's for allowable costs
associated with a farm to food bank
project if a state elects to involve a
food bank association in its project
this should be outlined in their state
plan amendment great thank you
the next question can an emergency
feeding organization buy the food with
other funding and then use farm to Food
Bank project funding to harvest process
package or transport it as stated above
in the section on the definition of a
farm to Food Bank project foods must be
privately donated in a farm to food
bank project food cannot be purchased
through the project for our next
question how will the state match be
verified for these funds as with any
grant matching the match will be
verified as part of the overall
monitoring and review process initially
FNS will look at the state plan
amendment to understand how each state
plans to cover the match validation of
the match will occur during regular
management evaluation that said if at
any time FNS believes that a matche is out
of line with regulations or guidance we
can investigate and potentially disallow
the match and for our final question
since the farm to Food Bank projects
were slated to start in 2019 will the
2019 four million dollars that was
available roll into 2020 so that the
2020 funding level will actually be
eight million dollars
thanks Polly I know that that is a point
of confusion for many FNS is providing
four million dollars from federal 2019
for federal year 2020 fiscal year 2020
projects this funding is subject to
rescission so the actual amount funded
is around three point seven five million
dollars we will continue to provide a
similar annual level of funding through
2023 when the funding is set to expire
great thanks Rachel and thanks to
everyone for watching our webinar today
