Addressing Food Insecurity in SLP with a Food Security Task Force
Written by: Riley Gil, St Thomas University BUSN200, 2021
Food Insecurity & Why We Should Care About It
Food insecurity is when individuals do not consistently have access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food. Poverty is just one of the underlying issues of food insecurity; however, food insecurity can also affect people who aren’t necessarily poor, but may not be living in areas close to stores with nutritious food. Low wages, unemployment, limited access to health care, high cost of food, unaffordable housing, and limited transportation are all barriers to food security. Those who are at highest risk of food food insecurity include low-income residents, seniors, children, and residents of color.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, 8.6% of Minnesotans experienced some level of food insecurity while 10.5% of households in the US experienced food insecurity according to data from the USDA. The pandemic has more than doubled the amount of US households facing food insecurity as 23.0% of households struggled with the issue in 2020 according to a study from Northwestern University. With such an increase in food insecurity in Minnesota and across the US over the past year, it is important to increase efforts working to reduce food insecurity such as the Wilder Research’s Local Food Access Assessment recommendation of creating a food security task force to address the barriers of food security.
Food Security Task Forces
The overarching goal of a food security task force is to create a healthy local food system. This involves collaborating with local government, businesses, community organizations, non-profits, and residents in order to:
Raise awareness about food insecurity issues
Coordinate support for food insecure residents
Strengthen services providing support for food insecure residents
Recommend legislative action, strategies, and city policies that address food insecurity
With the establishment of a food security task force with these goals in mind, the city of St. Louis Park would begin seeing numerous positive outcomes relating to food security. Specific outcomes of food security task force efforts in St. Louis Park regarding poverty includes collaborating with the local government to establish a citywide minimum wage, increased health insurance coverage, and reduced costs of housing. Working with local businesses and non-profits could result in Metro Transit expanding routes in St. Louis Park as well as increasing participation in the Minnesota Volunteer Driver Coalition which has provided over 77,000 rides helping Minnesotans get meals and other key services. Other direct outcomes of establishing a food security task force in St. Louis Park includes utilizing more spaces for farmers markets and increasing usage of the 110 community garden plots especially in areas where residents lack access to nutritious food.
These outcomes would greatly benefit Minnesota, which saw a 7% increase in food shelf visits in 2020 to a new record of 3.8 million visits according to data from Hunger Solutions. Minneapolis has already experienced some of these positive outcomes since the establishment of the citywide initiative to grow, process, distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods called Homegrown Minneapolis in 2008. Food security initiatives in large cities such as Minneapolis have proven to be successful, but smaller cities (similar to the size of St. Louis Park) across the US have established food security task forces such as New York’s Yorktown Food Security Task Force that was recently created in late 2020. With food councils proving successful in surrounding areas, other suburban cities starting to initiate food security task forces, and the Wilder Research’s recommendation to form a food security task force, St. Louis Park should look no further and begin implementing its own food security task force.
