By Brenna Fox

Lane county being one the largest and densely populated counties in all of Oregon,  a state leading in the nation in food insecurity, has a large demographic of minors emerging into adult hood and aging veteran living in poverty. This depicts a landscape of individuals entering and leaving the job market with no security of receiving a reliable paycheck or enough Social Security to make amends with rent as well as food. Oregon be as abundant in farmland doesn’t seem to have enough urban farming and food banks to meet the need of the homeless and even low to middle income families. This attributes to a large dense and diverse population going hungry. This means that even for those who have shelter it still is hard for EVERYONE in general to access food that is nutritional enough to sustain a healthy life, or to even feed an individual to the extent that they will not starve or become malnourished. Programs such as Food For Lane County ,Food Not Bombs, and Burrito Brigade exist because of the high intensity need to get food out to those who do not have the means to purchase or simply access food daily. Even with food banks readily available there demand is much greater for those living in surrounding suburbs which do to a rural farmland demographic spur hot pockets of food deserts.Perhaps the development of better urban farming could attribute for communities and homeless to have access to more public gardens and produce stands that could a secure surplus food doesn’t go to waste and reaches those who need it the most.