help out regardless of the situation. She put Taylor Farms, Driscoll’s and Tanimura & Antle in this category and apologized that there are just too many others that help as often as they can to start naming them. “The agricultural community offers tremendous support for us.” In Arizona’s most southwest region, the Yuma Community Food Bank is gearing up for increased donations as its area gets ready for the winter harvest to begin. Bruce Gwynn, who spent a career in agriculture—mostly with ag chemical firms but also running the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association for a time—now volunteers as a sourcing specialist working with growers and others to secure fresh donations. “We have amazing growers,” he said, again singling out both T&A and Taylor Farms as “champions” of the cause. He said both firms are everyday donors but also said many other companies, including JV Smith Companies, Barkley Ag Enterprises, Pasquinelli Produce and Top Flavor Farms do yeoman’s work for the food bank. Gwynn admitted it has been a difficult year for fresh donations. Having been in the industry for many
years, he gets it. He said profits have to come first and the Yuma Food Bank knows it does better when there is a surplus of products and prices are low. This year’s pandemic caused very robust sales on many vegetable and fruit items during the spring and summer. As such, Gwynn continued to expand his reach working with the local community college and research facilities to harvest their crops for the food bank after they have finished their educational use of the production. He said this is another area in which growers help as they often donate both land and seeds to these pursuits. He said Grimmway Farms recently donated carrot seeds for a local educational project in which one-third of an acre of carrots will eventually go to the food bank. “That’s a lot of carrots,” Gwynn said, adding that he has relied on Future Farmers of America students to harvest the crops. He noted that recently Steve Alameda of Top Flavor Farms donated an unharvested beet field that these FFA students then harvested. Shara Whitehead, president and CEO of the Yuma Food Bank, agreed that it has been a difficult year for fresh vegetable
donations. She said the local food bank has been serving the community for more than 40 years with more than 20,000 people being fed every month. She said about 8-10 million pounds of produce are donated each year, but those donations are dependent on weather and market conditions. Whitehead credited Gary Pasquinelli, Robby Barkley and Vic Smith with lobbying the Arizona Legislature for a tax break on product that is donated to charities such as the food bank. She said that successful effort several years ago greatly increased the level of donations received by the organization. She said that while the industry is excellent at sending its extra output to the food bank, there are always people who need a reminder. “We want them to look at the Food Bank as the end of the supply chain, and look at us as their partners.” Whitehead did echo Gwynn’s comments that “Taylor Farms is our biggest provider. They are number one,” she said, adding that a day hardly goes by without them donating at least one-truck load full of baby greens or another healthy items that means the world to hungry people.
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