New Partnership to Bring Fresh Produce to Communities in Need

Members of the Innovative Small Farmers Outreach Program team at a train-the-trainer event in 2024.

A groundbreaking new partnership between Lincoln University of Missouri (LU) and Aetna CVS Health will bring fresh produce to food deserts and food-insecure communities across Missouri.

Supported by a monetary gift from Aetna CVS Health, a health insurance provider under the CVS Health umbrella, Lincoln University Cooperative Extension’s Innovative Small Farmers Outreach Program (ISFOP) will work with farmers and community service organizations to provide and distribute produce to those in need.

The collaboration is the product of months of discussions and planning. ISFOP Director Dr. Mark Lucas — along with ISFOP Farm Outreach Worker Mary Keeter and Gina Sholtis from LU advancement — worked with the company through several Zoom discussions to coordinate the gift and decide on how best to use it.

Lucas said Aetna CVS Health wanted the money to go toward increasing the distribution of free food.

“A focus of the small farms program — empowered by this gift — is to work with low-income groups in towns and cities across Missouri,” Lucas said. “So how could we go about distributing fresh, free, locally grown food to that population?”

The first idea was to establish small farmers around selected cities as vendors and pay them to weigh, bag and transport their crops to distribution centers. There, ISFOP staff would give out the food.

However, discussions with ISFOP staff revealed that existing community service groups already do this kind of work. So, instead of building new infrastructure, they decided to work with those organizations.

Using this framework, ISFOP will facilitate funding, and community groups will work with their network of farmers to acquire and distribute fresh produce.

“We’re pairing with local community partners that we already work with in other ways to help us with distribution," Keeter said. "The part that we do really well already is work with small farmers, so pairing with an organization that already has experience with food giveaways means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel."

Keeter said the program benefits both consumers and farmers. She explained that small farmers must invest ahead of time in anticipation of the growing season, so they take a risk when deciding how much to spend on seed and other materials. If ISFOP can ensure farmers will have an output for produce — like this program — those producers can invest more confidently.

“It’s such an exciting project, thinking of all the groups we work with and how we might touch different groups in different ways,” Keeter said. “We work with a lot of small farmers struggling to size up and find new markets, and we work with a lot of communities that are food insecure.”

“It’s exciting to be able to provide income to farmers by purchasing produce they’re growing for people who need it,” she continued.

As ISFOP and Aetna CVS Health settled on terms, Lucas expressed concerns with doing a “one-and-done” giveaway. Instead, he said he wanted to establish an extended program — and the company agreed.

So, Phase I of the project will establish infrastructure in 2025 and give away as much food as possible, given the growing and harvesting seasons are coming to an end. What isn’t spent this year will roll into 2026, along with a new proposal sent to Aetna CVS Health asking for a Phase II continuation.

If approved, Phase II would establish a sustainable program, providing food to community members throughout the year. Long-term, Lucas said the hope is that this could become a permanent Aetna CVS Health-funded program.

“I’m really grateful to Aetna for having foresight and understanding the importance of nutrition in health — how we feel better when we eat better,” Keeter said. “People deserve to eat the best things.”

Keeter added that in her experience, donated food can sometimes be lower quality. She said she’s volunteered at food pantries before where the food seemed like items grocery stores didn’t sell because they didn’t look the best.

“This isn’t going to be like that,” she said.

“This is going to be the very best produce that you could get. Regardless of what neighborhood you live in, you should have the freshest, most delicious produce. We want people to feel valued.”

While ironing out the details of the program, Lucas also realized simply giving people food isn’t enough. He said those who haven’t had fresh produce before don’t know what to do with it. So, ISFOP will work with its community partners to provide recipes and information on the produce available.

“Generations tend to repeat themselves. So, young people in these neighborhoods only know what they were exposed to, which is the same thing their parents and grandparents were exposed to,” Lucas said. “The way you break out of those cycles is by introducing advocates for change — something different that exposes people to something new.”

As of Oct. 31, Lincoln has officially accepted Aetna CVS Health’s gift proposal. Lucas said ISFOP anticipates receiving a check soon to fund Phase I of the program and will continue working with Sholtis to submit the Phase II proposal to fund the entire 2026 growing season.