NM Local Food Portal

The NM Local Food Data Portal is designed to provide information about local food purchases being made through the New Mexico Grown program, which is part of the Governor’s Food Initiative. New Mexico Grown benefits the local agricultural economy, helps ensure long-term viability of New Mexico’s farmers, ranchers, and other food producers, and provides lower income New Mexicans from preschool to the elderly with healthy, local food. 

 

The Portal allows institutional buyers to submit local food purchasing data. This data is linked to Local Food Dashboards that offer data visualizations and detailed reports showing information about local food purchases on the buyer and supplier sides. The Portal therefore helps improve understanding of New Mexico Grown purchasing. 

 

The overall purposes of the NM Local Food Data Portal are: 

  • To provide an easy-to-use, streamlined mechanism for entering, storing, analyzing, and showcasing all NM Grown local food purchases 

  • To be able to empirically show various components of NM Grown purchasing and identify trends in terms of: geographic sources of purchase and supply, purchases ($ amounts and volumes) by food product types, etc. 

  • To share information about NM Grown purchases and sales with key stakeholders (buyers, suppliers, policymakers, etc.) 

  • To better understand the functioning of the NM Grown “marketplace,” which can help illustrate current benefits of the program and improve the program in the future  

 

The Portal has been designed by a New Mexico-based data and technology company, Falling Colors. The NM Farmers’ Marketing Association has overall responsibility for management and administration of the Portal and associated Dashboards. Funding for the Portal is provided by the Thornburg Foundation and the USDA. 

 

Participating Administering Agencies include: the Public Education Department (PED), the Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD), Aging and Long-Term Services Department (ALTSD), and The Food Depot (TFD) in partnership with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA). 

 

Administering Agencies are responsible for entering data according to the following:  

Administering Agency

Local Buyers 

PED

School districts/ school food authorities

ECECD

Early childcare sponsors and centers 

ALTSD

Senior center sponsors and centers 

TFD/NMDA

Regional Food Banks 

 

More information on New Mexico Grown can be found at https://newmexicogrown.org  

 

Information in the Help Pages include: 

  • Virtual Tour of the Portal with videos that help users get familiar with all aspects of the Portal; 

  • How-to: written how-to guidance for using all aspects of the Portal; 

  • Terms and Concepts, which provide a deeper understanding of how the application works and provide explanations of what various terms mean; and 

  • Troubleshooting - how to address any questions about the Portal application, along with a short video detailing how to use the Portal.