Log In


Reset Password
News Education Local News Nation & World New Mexico

Food for thought

Retreat aims to close the gaps in distribution

More than 1 in 4 working families in Colorado did not have enough food to meet their basic needs, according to a 2011 U.S. Census Bureau survey. In 2012, nearly one in six Coloradans experienced hunger.

At the Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado seventh annual Homegrown Food Retreat on Saturday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, open discussions, presentations and workshops shared a theme around the gaps in connecting food with those in need.

Entitled Hungry for Change, the retreat opened the floor to group discussions on how and where these so-called gaps exist and explored possible solutions. Keynote speaker Sarah Haynes of the New Mexico Community Data Collaborative, a subsidiary of the New Mexico Department of Health, heard the stream of ideas and helped local food producers and others – about 80 people total – organize their concerns.

Haynes and the NMDC employ a unique approach to better understand health patterns in New Mexico.

“We’re a public-health, geographical-information systems mapping service,” she said. “We go around and we map out different indicators – poverty, for instance, cost of living, uranium mines – to determine how that affects some of the chronic disease outcomes in New Mexico. We really just started getting into foods, and we feel that it’s a huge public health issue.”

Haynes said GIS and food mapping can reveal startling information about a region’s health.

“We started mapping different foods, farms, diabetes, obesity rates and other things that make it hard for people to actually get healthy food in their body,” she said.

She said an obvious issue in the five counties she studied in Colorado – Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan – was the cost of living.

“I can just imagine someone having to choose,” she said. “Pay utilities, pay rent or buy healthy groceries for their families?”

According to the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the state has the third fastest rate of child poverty in the nation.

Rachel Landis, coordinator for the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center and part of the Southwest Growing Partners steering committee, said gaps in distribution keep local farmers from selling food and local families from eating it. She said 1 in 4 families go hungry at least once a week in this portion of the state.

“How is it that you have food producers with food rotting in their fields, and they can’t feed themselves because they can’t make any money, and then you have people that can’t get any food?” she asked. “There’s a gap there. How do you get that food to people but do it in a way that is financially viable to the farmer?”

Landis said the retreat is a function to bring together stakeholders in the food system to brainstorm and collaborate on solutions. Common ideas revolved around educating the public about the value of locally grown foods, improving distribution systems and pooling resources.

“The goal is to bring these folks together and focus on these gaps,” she said. “To use a collective voice to come up with actionable solutions for addressing these gaps and moving us forward. Food is power.”

bmathis@durangoherald.com



Reader Comments