President: Gale Betterly
This is a bittersweet moment – my final column as your County Farm Bureau President. I have served as president for a total of 5 years, with 9 years in between as a State Trustee. It has been a great experience and I have enjoyed meeting and working with so many wonderful people.
At our September Annual Meeting, Andy Troutman will be installed as your new President. Wishing you the very best, Andy. I know you will do well. I think it’s very fitting that a viticulturist (grape specialist) follows a dairy scientist. I know a lot about helping cows give great milk that can be made into cheeses that go so well with wine and Andy is very proficient in taking grapes from planting through wine marketing. Do enjoy! By the way, for those of you who wonder about 4-H, Andy’s vocation started with a 4-H project and his interest grew along with his vines.
The most interesting thing that I’ve been introduced to this year has been serving on the Summit County Food Policy Coalition. This volunteer group, made possible in part by a grant from the Akron Community Foundation and United Way, has been looking at food insecurity in Summit County. Food insecurity is measured by lack of access to nutritional food for an active and healthy life. According to Feeding America and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2015 there were 87,480 food insecure people in Summit County. Of that number, 26,620 were children. That’s 16.2% of our Summit County population.
Food banks, like our Akron/Canton Regional Food Bank (ACRFB) are working hard to provide meals to many of these people. Last year, ACRFB provided 8,793,209 meals. Included in those meals were 2,811,308 pounds of produce provided at no cost to the recipients. Still, many people are not sure from where their next meal will come.
According to Jill Clark, Ph.D., from the OSU John Glen College of Public Affairs, the top need in Ohio is expanding local food production. That production can come from family gardens and small protein producers such as small hen flocks and rabbit operations. Yes, a large operation can feed more people at one time, but providing wholesome, healthy food for one family or a few families can help bridge the gap. It’s like a head of wheat. Each wheat berry is very small but grouped together, we get the flour that becomes our bread, pasta and other staples.
The Food Policy Coalition has been looking at the reasons more people don’t plant gardens, raise a few hens to provide their own eggs and meat or raise some small animals for their families. One reason is that our society is good at building walls. Zoning regulations in many of our cities and villages prohibit having chickens, sheep, goats and pigs. The problem isn’t the animals as long as good animal husbandry practices are followed – it’s perception. It’s a lack of education and our society’s increasing distance from actually knowing a farmer or farm family. We can make changes to help those who would like to help guarantee a healthy diet for their family.
Ohio doesn’t require ANY nutrition education in the schools. Perhaps that’s because it’s harder to grade those tests. We may not use geometry every day, but most of us do eat every day. Hopefully we need lawyer and physician services very infrequently, but most of us plan for three square meals a day.
Your Board, for over 10 years, has provided the primary support for our Ag Mobile’s visits to our schools. With our mobile classroom, we have reached thousands of students with one or more lessons about nutrition, farming and soil preservation. We believe that we have, and continue to make a difference. If you would like to help us reach more schools and more students, the Summit County Mobile Agricultural Education program is a 501c(3) non-profit and donations are tax deductable. Donations, made out to SCMAE or Ag Mobile, can be sent to our office in North Canton.
One program that can help introduce students to locally grown foods is the USDA Farm to School initiative. I went to the USDA website to see how many of our local schools are participating – the answer is not many! Across the state 27% of the school districts participate in the Farm to School program. I may have missed some, and I didn’t include the private, parochial or charter schools, but here is what the reports says about the 2014/2015 school year: Akron City School – no, will in future; Barberton – YES; Copley – no, will in future; Hudson – no, no plans to start; Norton – YES; Twinsburg – YES; Woodridge – no, will in future. Revere and many of the others I haven’t listed didn’t bother to return the survey. What’s so difficult about getting foods grown locally into our local schools? Good question for taxpayers like you and I to ask.
Thank you, as a Farm Bureau member, for reaching toward the goal of sound communications between producers and consumers. Everyone wins when we better understand one another. Every best wish to you and yours.