Task force: Oklahomans know hunger

Editor's notes: Oklahoma Task Force on Hunger meets again Oct. 16 at 1:30 p.m. at the Oklahoma Hospital Association's office, 4000 N. Lincoln Blvd. in Oklahoma City.

By Jaclyn Houghton

CNHI News Service

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Each week Thalia Miller makes the rounds to the Chickasaw Nation's senior sites to donate and sell fresh vegetables to elderly members of the community.

She doesn't consider it a business venture.

"Ours is more just for the nutritional needs of our elders," said Miller, director of the Horticulture Department of the Chickasaw Nation in Ada. " ... A lot may not be able to go to stores."

The Chickasaw Nation is one of several communities operating a community garden not only for nutritional value, but to educate children on where food comes from and the importance of a balanced diet.

Creating more community gardens, like the one in Ada, to deal with hunger was a topic at the first Oklahoma Task Force on Hunger meeting, bringing together legislators, agency officials, religious organizations and public and private groups Tuesday.

Senate Bill 499, authored by Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, created the task force. The 15-member group is charged with making recommendations to coordinate services between organizations and governments, to expand programs, to find ways to get more people into existing programs, to find funding and to make sure children have access to food. The task force is to report on its findings by Dec. 31.

Oklahoma is ranked sixth in the nation for citizens with low or very low food security, meaning households that are financially stretched and may not be able to afford food.

About 14.6 percent of Oklahomans have low or very low food security compared with about 11 percent nationwide, according to a 2005 U.S. Department of Agriculture report.

"We're well above where we need to be in the state," said Rodney Bivens, executive director and CEO of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and member of the task force.

Bivens said about 17 percent of Oklahomans fall below the federal poverty line and the number is growing. About one in five children are at risk of going hungry, he said.

"Children sometimes don't have anything to eat from lunch Friday afternoon to breakfast Monday morning," Bivens said.

David Thompson, Chickasha Emergency Food Pantry board chairman, said the organization gives bags of groceries to 1,500 to 1,800 people each year. He said the number of people needing food has stayed pretty steady over the years and most of those in need are not homeless.

"This is for your short-term emergency use," he said.

He said studying the issue of hunger is good as long as any changes made statewide come with well-managed programs. No matter the good intentions of food pantry programs, he said, if it is not well managed, then people who do not qualify will take advantage of free food.

Bivens said he would like to see more people use food stamps and eat school meals, especially breakfast.

He also wants to collect better hunger and food access statistics.

Finding money to provide more food to the hungry is another concern. He said a U.S. Department of Agriculture program provides commodities to Oklahomans, but since commodity prices like corn have increased, the amount of food provided to communities has decreased. The decline is about 33 million pounds of food over the past five years, Bivens said.

When people are on a tight budget, the "one thing they limit from their diet are fresh fruit and vegetables. They're expensive and they have a short shelf life. In rural areas, sometimes they don't have access to it," he said.

That is why Bivens, along with Jim Horne, president of The Kerr Center For Sustainable Agriculture in Poteau, want more community gardens.

"We see the schools as a real ripe opportunity" to create gardens, Horne said. This may help "get kids used to where their food comes from."

Jaclyn Houghton is CNHI News Service Oklahoma reporter.