The Miracle of Agriculture Foundation works to support both farmers and ranchers, and Utah families struggling with food insecurity. They facilitated a service project during the American Farm Bureau Convention in the expo hall, putting together non-perishable food boxes for families in the Midwest experiencing food insecurity.
“I think there's 25 products over there on the on the line, and they've donated at all and then we're putting them in a box, and we're gonna send two semi loads of so 50 pallets to Iowa and then 50 pallets to Kentucky,” said Clayton Beckstead, the director of The Miracle of Agriculture Foundation.
Farm Bureau stakeholders in Iowa and Kentucky have visited Utah to see the foundation in action and get guidance on possibly starting something similar of their own.
“And so we just thought it would be kind of a cool way to kind of kickstart what they're wanting to do out there,” Beckstead said.
For this specific project, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints donated everything they would need, including, food boxes, semi-trucks, drivers, and conveyor belts. Beckstead said that without the church’s donations, this project wouldn’t have been possible.
The Miracle of Agriculture Foundation was founded in Utah by business leaders in 2020.
“We started at the very beginning of the pandemic when farmers and ranchers were throwing away their products because they couldn't get it processed," Beckstead said. "So we went around to the farms and ranches and gathered their products and gave them away to people that needed it.”