As COVID-19 continues to exacerbate and illuminate systemic inequities, we’re seeing more clearly than ever how increased unemployment quickly leads to greater food insecurity. But our national hunger crisis didn’t start with the pandemic. 35.2 million people lived in food-insecure households in 2019, and that’s the lowest number we’ve seen in eight years.

What did occur as the result of COVID-19, however, was the reality of hunger in the U.S. seeping into public consciousness more than ever before. And with increased awareness came new efforts of activism to mitigate it. One such effort is The Farmlink Project, an organization launched by university students in April that distributes surplus produce from farms to communities in need. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an average of 31.3 percent of all marketable produce is left behind in harvest and never makes it off the farm. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are suffering from food insecurity, including 41 percent of students at a four-year university. Farmlink aims to address this grim paradox.

“In the last eight months, I've seen firsthand how tens of billions of pounds of fresh food are wasted each year, irrespective of the pandemic,” says Aidan Reilly, one of The Farmlink Project’s founders. “The source of this issue is complex, but it’s a symptom of a system that values production rate over production efficiency. Our goal at Farmlink is to expose and offer solutions to the flaws in this logic.”

Two major corollaries of the pandemic were (and continue to be) food supply chain breakdowns and decreased volunteer capacity at food banks. “The sudden and widespread slashing of contracts in the spring of 2020 caused massive surpluses of one crop in a region, while a nearby region lacked that food entirely,” Reilly explains. And while new visitors to food banks skyrocketed, the usual staff force dwindled as volunteers stayed home to protect themselves and others from the virus. “What resulted was a perfect storm, with food banks not being able to withstand the relentless demand,” he says.

Young people whose plans were upended by the shutdown saw The Farmlink Project as an opportunity to take action. “I finished school in the spring and I wanted to spend my time actually making a difference through my work,” says Diana Daniels, a member of Farmlink’s Food Insecurity Team. “When I saw a story about Farmlink on my local news station I knew immediately that I wanted to join.”

The Farmlink Project isn’t looking to reinvent the wheel when it comes to food justice work. The organization seeks to bolster frontline activism within communities experiencing food insecurity themselves. They partner with community leaders such as Rodger Williams, co-founder of Adopt-A-Native-Elder, a donation program that supports members of the Navajo Nation experiencing food insecurity.

After helping facilitate a drop off of necessities, Farmlink team member Claudia Sandell wrote a profile on Williams highlighting Adopt-A-Native-Elder’s impact on the Navajo Nation in the Southwestern U.S. “The volunteers loaded the cars’ trunks with boxes of medical supplies, shelf-stable items such as flour, and certificates for fresh food and firewood,” she writes. “Many on the reservation lack electricity and rely on firewood to cook and heat their homes. Many, too, live one or more hours from stores where they can buy fresh produce.”

These distribution events are more than just drop-offs—they are the result of collaborative community effort. The elders in attendance, most between the ages of 75 and 108, arrive in the care of younger family members, bearing woven rugs and jewelry they’ve crafted by hand. Adopt-A-Native-Elder pays them up front, replenishes their materials, and sells the crafts online. “Twice a year, Rodger returns to each community of elders and repeats the exchange of goods and greetings. Some elders pass between visits and new ones join the circle of giving,” Sandell writes. Hopefully as Farmlink continues to expand its reach, resources and recognition will continue to be redistributed to organizations like Adopt-A-Native-Elder.

Farmlink began as an emergency relief effort and has now grown into an organization of over 250 young people motivated to effect lasting change. “At the beginning of the pandemic, our conversation was largely about how we could get the most food to the most people who were losing their jobs, losing access to food stamps and government aid, and generally the most financially affected by COVID and the ensuing shutdowns,” Sierra Fang-Horvath, the lead of Farmlink’s Social Justice Committee, says. “Now we’re talking about how we can systematically target policies, systems, and even organizations who intentionally feed the cycle of racism, homophobia, and overall hegemony that leads to widespread hunger.”

Digging deeper into issues of food insecurity in the U.S. ultimately leads to the realization that food banks and government aid are band-aid solutions for a much greater problem. “I hope that while we continue to provide this temporary food rescue service, we also work to figure out the best ways for everyone to get access to food without relying on food banks,” Daniels says. She acknowledges that it’s not a goal Farmlink can achieve single handedly, and explains that her time with the organization has inspired her to continue to pursue food justice work professionally.

Reilly believes in Farmlink’s potential to impact and reform our food system as we move through, and eventually past, the COVID-19 pandemic. “Families should not end up in a food bank or homeless shelter within days of a layoff in the world's richest country,” he says. “The line between security and survival in this country was paper-thin before the pandemic, and has repeatedly failed to withstand the pressures of the last several months.”

Change isn’t going to come easily. Farmers and suppliers are deeply entrenched in the existing economic incentives system that’s led us to the point where a single unforeseen event—such as an accident, illness, or layoff—can mean an individual no longer being able to feed themselves or their families. Farmlink will have to find a way for their partnership to cost less and be more time-efficient for farmers than it would be for them to send surplus to a disposal service. “We’ve done this during the global emergency, and it will take a deftness and agility to shift our work accordingly as the supply chain stabilizes,” Reilly says. “If we are able to accomplish it, we have the potential to save billions of pounds of food, inundate the food system with more fresh produce, and do so for years to come.”

Farmlink has now moved food in 40 states, Mexico, and soon England as well. The team may have come together under bleak circumstances, but it’s helping pave the way to a brighter future. “Each time we pass a milestone, a remarkable wave of energy passes through the team as we process the scale of potential impact this solution can have,” Reilly says. “The opportunity to end these crises is very real, it's happening, and it's here to stay.”