Fresno is located in the heart of what farmers like to call the nation's salad bowl -- prime farmland where a multitude of fruits and vegetables are grown. So at first blush, Fresno might seem like an unusual place for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network to hold a half-day meeting about "Ensuring Access to Healthy Foods."
But it's no secret to anyone working in health in California that "food insecurity"is a big problem in the Central Valley. A group of about thirty participants listened yesterday as Edie Jessup of the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program (CCROPP) flashed through a powerpoint including the sobering number that 40 percent of the Valley's residents are hungry. "It's a paradox," she said. "We raise the food for the nation."
The point of the meeting was not just to bemoan the problem but to outline strategies for solutions, especially at the local level. After going through the numbers about childhood and adult obesity, high unemployment rates in rural areas and health disparities for communities of color, Jessup said that she sees a big shift from just a few years ago.
“There is something changing here in the Valley. All of a sudden it seems like we’ve hit the tipping point," she told the group. "We have folks doing garden work, organic farms here ... We also have folks doing systemic work so there’s a garden in every community. ... There's all these nascent things happening that weren't happening five years ago."
One of them is the Fresno Food System Alliance which started just 18 months ago. Its main project is connecting small farmers to schools with a "wide group" of stakeholders, Jessup says, including food processors and the public health department. "That is the big impact they want to make -- get local foods into the food system so our kids get healthier AND economically it makes sense."