Kerr Center to Tackle Community Food Security
— Doug Walton and Maura McDermott
Early last fall, the Kerr Center received a grant from the USDA’s
Community Food Projects Initiative, a national competitive grant
program.
In 2004, the USDA awarded 25 grants totaling $4.6 million to
organizations in 17 states. Since its inception in 1996, the program
has funded 186 projects to increase food security in communities
around the country.
The Kerr Center project “Building a Foundation for Food
Security in Oklahoma” is the first and only project in Oklahoma
to be funded by this program to date.
The grant will run through June ‘07 and enable the Kerr
Center and the Oklahoma Food Policy Council (see sidebar) to work
with diverse groups to “craft comprehensive responses to
pressing food, farm and nutrition issues” in Oklahoma, such
as the state’s high rates of poverty and food insecurity,
the obesity epidemic and poor nutrition of children, and the ongoing
economic challenges faced by Oklahoma small farms and rural communities.
Partners in the project include the Oklahoma Food Policy Council;
Oklahoma Departments of: Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Human
Services, and Environmental Quality; OSU Cooperative Extension
Service; Northeastern State University; Oklahoma Sustainability
Network; Oklahoma Sierra Club, and Wylie Harris, Food and Society
Policy Fellow of the Kellogg Foundation.
Supporters include the Oklahoma Agriculture Statistics Service,
Oklahoma Department of Education, Oklahoma Conference of Churches,
Action for Healthy Oklahoma Kids, Oklahoma Farmers’ Market
Alliance, and the Oklahoma Farmers Union.
One of the goals of the grant is to expand the knowledge base
of the Oklahoma Food Policy Council. In order to do this, the
grant will fund an assessment of Oklahoma’s food system
(see sidebar), in which basic information about food, health and
agriculture in the state will be compiled in a user-friendly format.
This comprehensive report about Oklahoma’s food system will
be written to identify:
• The greatest threats to health and food security within
Oklahoma.
• The extent that Oklahoma can increase its food self-reliance,
and the potential economic and social benefits of doing so.
• Policy recommendations to address specific problems and
opportunities identified in the assessment.
The report will be presented to the council to be used in stimulating
a dialogue in the state about current and future state policies
that pertain to food, farming and nutrition.
Another goal of the grant is to increase public understanding
of Oklahoma’s food system. Activities to achieve this goal
include:
• A Seminar on the food system report
for policy makers.
• A Public Awareness Campaign to increase
understanding of food security and how our food choices affect
our own health and the health of our communities and local economies.
We will be working with partnering organizations to coordinate
coverage of food security topics and to report on project. progress
in Field Notes and other media.
• Educational Outreach to nearly 5000
limited-resource families in the state. Nutritional coaches from
OSU’s Community Nutrition Education Program will provide
information about fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables at farmers’
markets in Oklahoma.
• Farmers’ Speakers’ Bureau.
Working with Oklahoma’s Ag in the Classroom (OAITC) program,
we will establish a database of farmers and ranchers interested
in visiting schools, or hosting farm tours, to be used by Oklahoma
schoolteachers.
• Teacher Workshops. Touring CSA farms,
visiting farmers’ markets, school and community gardens,
and eating locally grown meals are a few of the activities planned
for public school teachers, again in partnership with the Ag in
the Classroom Program. We will provide classroom seminars and
hands-on training on school gardening, cooking and eating activities
with kids, and farm-to-school initiatives.
• School Curriculum and Activities.
We’ll be working with OAITC’s curriculum writers
and teacher trainers to include more experiential learning activities
that teach children how food is grown (such as school gardens),
while encouraging healthy eating habits, by preparing and eating
nutritious foods that are produced in Oklahoma.
The third goal of the grant is to support development of farm-to-school
programs. These programs have the potential to improve the nutrition
of all of Oklahoma’s schoolchildren, including those from
low-income families, by delivering fresh, nutritious tasty produce
to lunchrooms.
The Oklahoma Food Policy Council has already initiated important
action to connect Oklahoma farmers with public school lunch programs.
This project will build on such efforts through these activities:
• Expanding Pilot Programs. Four school
systems participated in a pilot farm-to-school program in fall
2004 (see Field Notes, fall issue). We will continue to work with
pilot partners to include more schools, farmers and food items.
We will also explore other possible ways to connect schools with
Oklahoma farmers.
• Farm-to-School Workshops. These events
will bring together school food service staff, producers, distributors,
parents, teachers and others interested in learning about and
establishing farm-to-school initiatives. The first workshop is
being planned for early November of this year.
• Resource Guides. These publications
will help food service directors and food producers establish
successful farm-to-school programs.
Through all of the activities and interactions taking place during
this project, Oklahomans from all walks of life (policy makers,
educators, the media, schoolchildren, parents, farmers, and others)
will be exposed to new ideas and gain new awareness of how food,
farming and nutrition affects all of our lives.
Combining this new public understanding with the win-win effects
of making farm-to-school connections, we will truly be building
a foundation for community food security in Oklahoma.
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