LAWTON – Eliminating food deserts in western Oklahoma will be the priority of a panel determined to help rural Oklahomans have enough food on a daily basis.
The group from small western Oklahoma towns, food distribution and preparation sites, school district officials and interested residents will meet 9 a.m., March 12 at the Lawton Farmer’s Market Institute to help determine how $45 million in federal grants should be spent. The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $30 million to Hunger Free Oklahoma late last year while GusNIP (Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program) another federal program, awarded the state $15 million.
According to the federal grant programs, funding must be spent in the next four years, said Cindy Nocton, executive director of the Lawton Farmer’s Market Institute.
According to a 2019 report by the Oklahoma Regional Food Bank, out of Oklahoma's 77 counties, 54 contain food deserts and 76 contain areas of low access to large grocery stores.
“We want to reach out to those food deserts, those small towns that are an hour or more from the closest grocery store – places like Apache and Cement,” Nocton said.
Some of the largest food deserts in southwestern Oklahoma are in Cotton, Jackson, Caddo and Grady counties, she said.
“Let’s figure out how to get food from Point A to Point B,” Nocton said. “We need to be finding out where all of those Point Bs are located.”
Nocton described Point A as food distribution sites and Point B as feeding sites. Another critical element of the food program is finding enough drivers to deliver the food to feeding sites, she said.
Proper nutrition for children and families is more of a problem than many people think. More than one in five (208,110) Oklahoma children don’t get the food they need and 15.6% of Oklahoma households are food insecure, according to Hunger Free Oklahoma.
“There are so many hungry people out there,” Nocton said.
That was evident in the past year when vendors at the Farmer’s Market collected $98,000 in all government food programs compared to $40,000 the previous year. Two of the programs are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Double Up Program (DUO), which focuses on fruits and vegetables for families. When a family spends $20 on SNAP-eligible products, they are awarded a matching DUO dollar to spend on fruits and veggies, up to $20 per day, at participating grocery stores and farmers markets.
“We’re one of the largest food markets in Oklahoma,” Nocton said. “We have a waiting list of 300 vendors.”