FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Seattle to Host Two National Food Conferences

On the first weekend in October Seattle will host two national food conferences sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition. The weekend will open with the first national Farm to Cafeteria Conference, "Healthy Farms, Healthy Students," on Friday, October 4, followed by the 6th annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference, October 5-7. The conferences will focus on linking schools with local farmers and on responding to hunger in the midst of plenty.

Both conferences are open to everyone concerned with the issues of education, hunger, nutrition, and local agriculture. Full program and registration information is available on the Community Food Security Coalition website: http://www.foodsecurity.org/event_cfsc_conf.html.

Announcement of the food security conferences comes on the heels of the release of a Brandeis University report ranking Oregon and Washington first and second in the nation in the number of people going hungry (see Associated Press story below).

The conferences will bring together US and Canadian leaders to review strategies for securing a universal supply of nutritious, affordable, and sustainably produced food for everyone. Keynote speakers include:

• Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Coming Home to Eat: the Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. Nabhan, ethnobotanist and Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, will address ways local "foodsheds" can enhance ecological well-being and food security. He will be the featured speaker at Earth Ministry's annual Celebration of St. Francis the evening of Saturday, October 5.
  
  
• Rod MacRae, former coordinator of the Toronto Food Policy Council. MacRae, who has a PhD in sustainable food and agriculture policy from McGill University in Montreal, is co-editor of For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems. He will discuss the creation of municipal food policy councils to address the complex challenges of food, hunger, and sustaining local agriculture in the age of globalization.

Conference Co-Sponsors

Cascade Harvest Coalition  -  Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association  -   Earth Ministry  -  Food Resource Network Federation  -  Fremont Public Association Lettuce Link Program  -   Pike Place Market Basket CSA  -   Seattle Dept of Neighborhoods P-Patch Program  -  WSU Cooperative Extension King County  -  WSU Small Farms Program

Conference Hosts

Antioch Center for Creative Change  -  Bountiful Table  -  Business Alliance for Local Living Economies  -   Emergency Feeding Program of Seattle-King County  -  Farm Folk/City Folk  -  Food Lifeline  -  Lutheran Public Policy Office  -  PCC Natural Markets  -  Seattle Tilth  -  Seattle Youth Garden Works  -  UBC Farm  -  Washington State Food & Nutrition Council  -  Washington Tilth Producers

Conference Supporters

1000 Friends of Washington  -  Abundant Life Seed Foundation  -  American Farmland Trust  -   Campbell Farm  -  Chefs Collaborative  -  Community Alliance for Global Justice  -  Community Food Matters  -  Corporate Agribusiness Research Project  -  Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon  -  Food Not Bombs  -  Fremont Public Association  -  Friends of Zenger Farm  -  Garden-Raised Bounty  -  King County Agriculture Programs  -  Kooskooskie Fish  -   Lopez Community Land Trust  -  Native American Food Systems Project  -   Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance  -   Orca School Garden  -   Oregon Tilth  -  Puget Sound Fresh  -   Puget Sound Salmon Commission  -  Seattle Food Committee  -   Seattle Nutrition Action Consortium  -  Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland  -  Slow Food Northwest  -   Spokane Tilth  -  Tahoma Food System  -  The Food Alliance  -  Vancouver Fruit Tree Project  -  Vashon Island Growers Association  -  Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network  -   Washington Association of Churches  -   Washington State Farmers Market Association   -   Washington Toxics Coalition  -  Washington State Department of Agriculture Small Farm & Direct Marketing Program  -  Whatcom Farm Friends   -   WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources

Oregon No. 1, Washington No. 2 in State Hunger Levels
- Rebecca Cook, Associated Press, August 15, 2002

Washington ranks second in the nation for hunger, after Oregon, according to a national report released Thursday.

Researchers are baffled by the apparent hunger problem in two states with lower-than-average poverty rates. But the statistics are no surprise to food bank workers, who say the combination of rural isolation and high cost of living is fueling the problem.

"It's not the bums sitting on the streets. It's actual working families," said Susan Eichrodt, manager of the state's Emergency Food Assistance Program, who tracks 320 food banks statewide. "They have to make tough choices."

Between June 2001 and June 2002, 61,211 households in Pierce County were served in food banks. In King County for the same period, 103,952 households were served, and in Thurston County, 8,977 households.

On average, 5 percent of Washington households and 6 percent of Oregon households went hungry between 1998 and 2000, according to the Center of Hunger and Poverty report on data from annual Census Bureau surveys.

The report defined hunger as the sensation of being hungry. The statistics mean that at any given time, five of every 100 Washingtonians are hungry because they can't afford food.

Frighteningly for Washington, the data were collected during a high point for the state's economy, before the high-tech crash and Boeing layoffs.

"That needs to be an enormous red flag for us," said Linda Nageotte, president and CEO of Food Lifeline, a Shoreline-based food distribution center. Food networks on both sides of the Cascades report a 15 percent increase in food bank visits over the past year.

"The demand has spiked," she said.

Nageotte said food becomes an optional item as the cost of living speeds past wages. Squeezed by rent, utilities and other expenses, poor families rely on food bank donations or do without.

That's what 37-year-old Anna Scott does. She eats her meals at Olympia's Bread and Roses soup kitchen. On days she works, usually at Goodwill or Target, she doesn't eat. In the past she's resorted to eating stale food, or cutting off dirty or rotten pieces to salvage a meal.

"That's hunger to me," she said. She's grateful places such as Bread and Roses exist, and proud her children are better off than she is.

"I always fed my children instead of myself, always," Scott said.

In that sacrifice, she's typical. A 2001 survey of 688 Spokane food bank clients found 64 percent of parents had gone without food so their children could eat; half did it at least once a month.

The number of people needing emergency food has increased fastest in rural Washington areas, where isolation, lack of transportation and a bad job market make the problem worse. Many Washington counties haven't found ways to replace the logging, mining or fishing that once supplied living-wage jobs.

"There's a poverty problem in this community," said Susan Faltermeyer, development director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Inland Northwest in Spokane.

Last year, 57 percent of her food bank clients named "low wages" as their reason for needing handouts, up from only 25 percent in 1998. Nearly half the client families had at least one working adult, and 18 percent of those were working two or more jobs.

Hunger Statistics

According to the Center on Hunger and Poverty report released Thursday, the states with the highest hunger rates are:

1. Oregon, 6.2 percent.
2. Washington, 5 percent.
3. New Mexico, 4.6 percent.
4. Utah, 4.4 percent.
5. Texas, 4.4 percent.