According to the University’s Community Service Center Managing Director Megan Smith, it started out with two simple questions: Why do we have people who are hungry? And how can we solve that?
Smith, who also heads the University’s RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments) program is partnering with the Oregon Food Bank to help solve these questions. For at least three years, RARE has worked across the state to provide food assessments of local food systems to review what needs to be done in order to provide fresh, local and nutritious food to rural communities.
“It’s the first of its kind,” says Smith. “A full food assessment across the state will provide a template of what we need to do to build a strong local food system. This could influence state and federal policy, helping to increase sustainability for the future. RARE is helping to bring a new energy to this undertaking.”
This year, there are four participants working in rural communities across the state, working to provide networking among producers, creating food guides and providing training and technical support to help communities access resources.
“Rural communities have a critical shortage of people power to concentrate energy on any number of issues that challenge them,” says Sharon Thornberry, Community Resource Developer for the Oregon Food Bank. “RARE participants have been able to provide that people power for community food systems to work.”
Thornberry explained how RARE has positively influenced community food systems. From creating non-profits to starting up farmers markets and community gardens, for the first time, isolated rural communities are able to access emergency food resources.
RARE participant John Dean, who was placed in Astoria to work with creating a local food assessment, agrees that RARE has been a beneficial implementation to rural communities.
“You can’t have a strong rural community without food and access to food,” explains Dean. “Having communities be more self-sufficient with their economic future needs is really important. We want to make a difference and be solidified as a permanent fixture in these local economies.”
For Smith, she hopes this project will be a long-term investment with RARE and the Oregon Food Bank.
“Over time, we hope to have a better picture of what we need to do to support local food markets,” says Smith. “It’s been a really rewarding experience to see this change in dialogue about food systems in remote communities. People are really seeing how important this is.”
http://rare.uoregon.edu/
http://csc.uoregon.edu/rare/
http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/?c=129360807996268268
