Kearsarge Food Hub

In Hanna Flanders’s view, the national food system has demonstrated its vulnerabilities in recent weeks and months.

The rising prices of fuel and fertilizer are leading to higher prices at grocery stores, which are directly passed down to consumers. Adverse weather disrupted crop availability, like the mid-January freeze that slowed carrot growth, leading to bare shelves in New England. Changes to federal food programs left nonprofits scrambling to determine the growing need and keep up with demand.

FEED Kearsarge, a coalition of local food access organizations, including Flanders’s nonprofit, the Kearsarge Food Hub, wants to be prepared for the next moment of crisis. Last October, when disruptions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program took the nation by surprise, the group was caught flat-footed because it was largely dormant at the time.

Kathleen Bigford regarded Bradford, like she did most of New Hampshire, as a greying place.

Having lived in town for decades and taught at the ConVal district middle school in neighboring Antrim for 25 years, she’d seen many young people leave the area and pursue their passions elsewhere. Then, as she approached her retirement, five of them returned.

“They had gone to school together, had traveled the world and had decided, ‘We want to be in Bradford and establish a food network with local farmers and have a place where local people can buy local food,’” she recalled.