Farmers Post, a pilot program launched by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is enabling farmers from eastern Connecticut to ship their products to local households through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The initiative aims to tackle food waste and decrease supply-chain emissions while ensuring that small farmers are compensated for their hard work.
Farmers Post leverages the USPS’s Connect Local program, which allows small businesses to provide same-day and next-day delivery at a low cost. Julia Kurnik, Senior Director of Innovation Start-ups for the Markets Institute at WWF, tells Food Tank that “the USPS is an ideal partner because they are already going to everyone’s door. It allows us to reach everyone, regardless of geographic divides.”
Initiated by WWF in 2020, the program enables farmers to ship their products through existing postal routes, avoiding market markups and additional fees.
“Fruit and vegetable farmers in the United States actually only keep about seven to eight cents of every dollar that we spend on fresh produce in a grocery store,” Kurnik points out. “It’s a very long, complicated supply chain, so farmers only get to keep a very small percent of that revenue.”