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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