Given Oklahoma’s total population of 3.7 million, and assuming that households experiencing food insecurity are the same size as the average of all households, this means that some 560,000 Oklahomans live in households that struggle with access to adequate food.  To get a clearer sense of how many people this is, imagine that on a Saturday afternoon this fall, the population in households that experience food insecurity in Oklahoma were all invited down to Norman and Stillwater to attend the football games.

Give or take a few thousand people, the food insecure could completely fill OU’s Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (capacity: 82,122) AND OSU’s Boone Pickens Stadium (capacity: 60,218) four times over.

To find out ways to help fight hunger and food insecurity in Oklahoma, contact the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma or the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

May everyone have a joyful and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.

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I have been in Food Banking for 28 years and just finished my 20th year as executive director of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. I have never seen the need for emergency food programs so prevalent or the increase in requests so high.

Emergency food programs were originally established to provide food for a short period of time to families who temporarily lacked enough money to meet all of their basic needs. Providing food allowed them to use their resources to pay a utility bill, put gas in the car to get to work or buy medicine. Families usually needed help two to four times per year, occasionally six times. Over the last two and a half years, not only has the number of people requesting help increased by 40 percent in the 24 counties served by the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, but, more and more families are relying on these emergency food programs to make it through each month.

Three recently released reports both confirm that hunger is a real problem in Oklahoma and provide a clearer understanding of who is affected by hunger and food insecurity.

According to numbers gathered in the spring of 2009 and reported in Hunger in America 2010 issued by Feeding America, 11.4 percent of Eastern Oklahomans are using emergency food programs, up from 10 percent at the time of the last study four years earlier. Forty-four percent of clients seeking food assistance are children, an increase of 6 percent. Monthly checking of information collected from emergency programs indicates both of these numbers have increased. Almost half of the seniors using emergency food programs reported having to choose between buying food and paying for medical care or medicine. 65 percent of households had monthly incomes of less than $1,000.

In November of 2009 USDA issued its annual report on food security showing Oklahoma as the fourth hungriest state in the nation with 5.9 percent of our population classified as having very low food security. Oklahoma ranked sixth in food insecurity with 14 percent of the state’s residents lacking money for food at times during the year. USDA information was collected at the end of 2008.

The latest report, using information collected most recently and from the largest sample, is the Food Research and Action Center’s (FRAC) Food Hardship: A Closer Look at Hunger. This report revealed that 22.2 percent of Oklahomans did not have enough money to buy the food that their families needed. According to the report Tulsa has the 21st and Oklahoma City the 12th highest rate of food hardship among the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Congressional District 2, covering most of Eastern Oklahoma has a food hardship rate of 25.4 percent, making it the 32nd highest district in the nation.

The root of hunger and food insecurity in Oklahoma is income and not having the resources to meet basic needs. Food, regardless of the body’s need for wholesome, nutritious energy to live a healthy productive life, is the first basic need to go when money is tight.

I fear it is about to get harder. Cuts in the current state budget, particularly in senior nutrition programs, resulted in requests to the two food banks in the state to make up the loss of food because of the loss of state funds to these programs. Emergency food programs that serve cooked meals have been asked to take on new clients with the closing or reduced hours of state funded senior nutrition sites. Now it is possible that the next fiscal year’s budget will require state agencies to take an 8 to 12 percent cut (on top of this year’s cuts). So far, most emergency programs have been able to step up to the challenge when it involves food. How much more they can do is a question to be answered.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

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Rural poverty is an important issue for Oklahoma both, because 35 percent of Oklahomans  live in rural areas and because rural areas are poorer than urban areas.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service(ERS), the rural poverty rate has exceeded the urban rate every year since poverty was first officially measured in the 1960s.  In 2002, 14.2% of the rural population was poor, compared with 11.6 % of the urban population.

When rural areas in the US were predominately agricultural, development strategies focused on strengthening farms. As the economy of the US shifted, communities began to try to attract or retain industry through the use of tax incentives and other economic concessions. Unfortunately, the costs of this approach often outweighed the benefits.

The failures of the industrial approach contributed to the development of a new approach: amenity based development. Amenity based development is a strategy that focuses on developing natural and cultural amenities. These amenities retain the population and attract tourists, retirees, entrepreneurs, and others whose arrival generates new jobs. This stimulates employment growth and economic and community development.

According to an ERS report, counties with high levels of recreational amenities are one of the few bright spots in rural development. During the 1990s, these places averaged 20% population growth, about three times that of other non-metropolitan counties, and 24% employment growth, more than double the rate of other non-metro countries.

ERS developed a natural amenities scale to measure the characteristics that enhance a location. The scale consists of six measures of climate, topography, and water area. You can see from the map below that Oklahoma does not rank highly on this scale. But, it does not rank at the bottom either. While having a lower number of natural amenities diminishes the applicability of amenities based development, there is still much to be gained from amenities based development in Oklahoma.

There are various approaches to amenities based development. One strategy is to create recreational amenities. A stream can be dammed to make a recreational lake or a golf course can be built. Where amenities exist, such as lakes in Oklahoma, they can be enhanced through upgrade and improved access .  Another strategy is to capitalize on cultural amenities such as historical battlefields, local history museums, and local forms of music, arts, or food. Whatever the strategy, advertising campaigns are a mainstay of amenities based development plans.

There is some criticism of amenities based development. One criticism is that the types of jobs that are created by this strategy are primarily seasonal, unskilled, low-wage jobs such as hotel and restaurant jobs. On the other hand, if tourism and recreational development attract significant numbers of seasonal and permanent residents, it could change the community for the better. The new residents could spark a housing boom and demand more goods and services, resulting in a more diversified economy with more high-paying jobs. Even low-paid recreation workers could benefit if better employment became available.

One concern we could raise about amenities based development in Oklahoma is whether it works. We’ve invested substantial resources in amenities over the years. Yet Delaware County, on Grand Lake, is 40^th of Oklahoma’s 77 counties in per capita income. McCurtain County, home of Broken Bow Lake and Beavers Bend State Park, is 56^th. This suggests other factors, such as accessibility and education, need to be considered as well.

Despite these drawbacks, amenities based development has emerged on the scene as a source of success where agricultural and industrial development have too often failed. This strategy has been widely successful in regions with a plethora of natural amenities, such as Colorado and Oregon. While regions with fewer natural amenities will never see the levels of development that these regions have, the principles of amenities based development can make a positive contribution to any region.

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