By EMILY SCOTT
For The Beachcomber
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food security means access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy lifestyle. Conversely, food insecurity is “the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.”
Although the majority of Vashon residents enjoy a relatively high standard of living, food insecurity does exist on our fair isle. This is evidenced by the fact that in 2014, the Vashon-Maury Community Food Bank served about 17 percent of the island’s population. That’s more than one of every six Vashon residents.
Vashon’s history is full of agricultural endeavors, and the island is currently becoming a destination for food entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. So, in a place with such a prominent food culture, why are there still people struggling with food insecurity and hunger? How is it that healthy food can be so abundant, but not accessible to everyone? Further, as an employee of the food bank and Co-Chair of the Vashon Island Growers Assoc- iation (VIGA) Board, I often find myself asking, “What is the role of Vashon’s farming community, and of VIGA, in addressing food insecurity on the island?”
Before trying to answer these questions, it should be acknowledged that food insecurity, hunger, economic disenfranchisement and the like exist because of broad systemic failures. One farmer or one nonprofit entity cannot address the issues alone. However, working in concert with local and regional governments, for-profit businesses and nonprofits, like VIGA, can shape the way individual communities respond to these issues.
If food insecurity means unreliable access to sufficient quantities of nutritious food, and the most nutritious food is produced locally using organic practices, then one way to decrease food insecurity is to increase access to locally grown and produced food for everyone. In an ideal world, the island’s farms would be able to produce enough to stock the shelves of Thriftway and the IGA with locally grown produce that could be sold at a price affordable to someone making minimum wage.
Currently, local farms are not able to produce at the scale necessary to sell wholesale to retail stores and institutions. VIGA is working to address this issue by researching the feasibility of forming a food hub, where locally grown and produced goods could be aggregated, processed, packaged and marketed on a larger scale.
So, what is the individual farmer’s role in addressing the issue of food access? The answer is they must keep doing what they do best — grow good food. To get healthy, locally grown food into the mouths of more Vashon residents, farmers need to not just maintain but expand their operations. Increasing production takes lots of time, energy and resources, especially considering that the profit margin is pretty small to start with, and currently, farms don’t have the incentive to expand.
This is where VIGA comes in. VIGA’s role is to encourage expansion and to offer the resources and incentives necessary to keep business profitable and to grow programs, like the Food Access Partnership, which get the fruits of farmers’ labor into the hands of those who can’t otherwise afford to buy it. In other words, VIGA’s task is to increase both the supply of and demand for locally grown and produced food.
In order for VIGA to provide the customized support that farmers need, those farmers must join VIGA and put pressure on the organization to fulfill its mission to promote farming, access to healthy food and a sustainable agricultural economy on Vashon. VIGA cannot serve those to whom it isn’t connected.
There’s an underlying assumption here that Vashon residents care about the well-being of their neighbors. Addressing issues of social inequity and changing the shape of something as intangible as a food system are not small tasks, but being aware of these issues and working toward positive change is the responsibility of anyone who is proud to live on this island.
If you’re interested in digging deeper into the issue of food insecurity on Vashon, join the Vashon food bank, Voice of Vashon and Vashon Community Care for the community forum, ”Who’s Hungry on Vashon?” at the Penny Farcy Building from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8. A panel of local social service providers and food-thinkers will, along with the audience, discuss what services currently exist for those in need and will try to identify the gaps where those services fall through.
Finally, if you enjoy eating good food and think that everyone deserves that option, join VIGA.
— Emily Scott is a VIGA co-chair and employee at the Vashon-Maury Island Food Bank.
