Lawmakers Tie Choose Iowa, Nutrition Education to Food Insecurity Solutions

Without your donation, some stories vanish. Support Decorah News. AMES, Iowa — Iowa legislators discussed food policy priorities, including the Choose Iowa program, food education efforts and support for food insecure individuals Friday at the Iowa Local Food Summit. The summit, led by Iowa Food System Coalition and Iowa Farmers Union, included panels with state agencies and Republican and Democratic legislators on local food policies. The discussions at the summit centered on supporting Iowa food producers, addressing issues of food insecurity in the state and the places where those two issues intersect. Food insecurity About 12% of Iowans are food insecure, according to data from Feeding American. But food security advocates project recent federal changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will make it more difficult for the state to support food-insecure households. Iowa has also enacted its own changes to food assistance programs. In January, Gov. Kim Reynolds' plan to stop SNAP recipients from purchasing sugary drinks, candy and other items, goes into effect. This summer, the state opted to carry out its own summer feeding program for food insecure children, rather than follow the federal summer feeding program. State Sen. Annette Sweeney, R-Iowa Falls, said these programs allowed for greater localization of food assistance. "Our local individuals working in the food pantries, they see the need," Sweeney said. With a state-led program, she said, these local individuals are able to advocate for changes and adjustments to a program so they can best serve their recipients. Rather than loading money onto SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards on a per-child basis as the federal program operates, the state program partnered with food banks to instead distribute $40 worth of food, per child, to households. Erin Drinnin, the division director for community access and eligibility at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, said during a panel earlier Friday that the state is still waiting for a finalized evaluation report of the Healthy Kids Iowa program. Preliminary feedback from the evaluation, according to Drinnin, showed that parents "really liked the program" but food banks and distribution sites reported there were "lots of operational challenges" due to the amount of food they had to move in a short period of time. Reynolds, speaking with reporters outside of her Terrace Hill residence Nov. 25, said the state is still "looking at all options" with the program to decide how it will proceed next year. Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, opposed the state's summer program and said a return to the federally led program would allow for more consumer choice. "People who are on SNAP buy the same groceries that you and I buy," Wessel-Kroeschell said. "Sometimes we buy a treat, but not always … So I strongly support the SNAP program, the Summer EBT program, I hope we someday are participating in it also." Local food policies Choose Iowa, the state's marketing program for locally grown and raised products, represents a crossover between efforts to address food insecurity and to support local food systems. Rep. Norlin Mommsen, R-DeWitt, was one of the legislators wh helped push the Choose Iowa program through the Legislature and later advocated for the program's purchasing program with local food banks. This year, the state agriculture department was allotted $200,000 to issue as matching grants to Iowa food banks for the purchase of locally grown food. Mommsen said Choose Iowa, which now has more than 300 members across more than 80 of Iowa's counties, has helped to "cultivate more food produced in Iowa." The food bank purchasing program, he said, also helps Iowans connect to locally grown food so that when they no longer need food assistance, they will "still recognize the Choose Iowa label, and then choose that food or try and connect with that food later." Choose Iowa also had a pilot program that granted funding to Iowa schools for the purchase of locally produced food. This program did not receive permanent funding in the latest agriculture appropriations bill. Mommsen said when it came to creating the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship budget for the year, it was simply a "dollars issue" that led the program to go unappropriated. Haley Hook, the legislative liaison for IDALS, said in a panel earlier at the summit the department hopes to permanently codify the school purchasing program so that a future allocation could be more easily made to the program. Sen. Mike Zimmer, D-DeWitt, said the state budget will be tight in the upcoming legislative session and he is "not hopeful" any budget or program will be expanded this year. "We're going to be clawing to hang on to what, minimally, we have right now," Zimmer said. "So to me, if we could just fund Choose Iowa at where it's at now, I would call that a success." Food education Zimmer, who has spent his career in education and currently serves as a career and technology education consultant in eastern Iowa, said he sees support for local food procurement at schools as "key" to keeping Iowans fed. Zimmer said those programs have to be supported, because as much as local schools want to purchase locally, they cannot afford to purchase locally without any assistance. Sweeney said she plans to, again, file a bill to require a semester of food education in Iowa schools. These classes, she said, would teach things like canning, gardening and food preparation, all skills she said "are gone." "So that's a bill I'm going to run this year to hopefully have people understand more about their food, where it comes from, and then to be able to buy our local foods and know how to fix it," Sweeney said. Zimmer agreed with his colleague and said the loss of these skills has coincided with an increase in purchasing highly processed, high-calorie food items. He said he would love to see a class like this, but from his experience, trying to find educators for these classes is "a tough go." "You can have the most beautiful program and (be) well equipped but if you don't have a teacher, you have nothing," Zimmer said. "And we do not have teachers going into that field … we're in the crisis on the education portion of it." Amid all of the hardships facing local food and food security efforts in the state, lawmakers said they are encouraged by the creativity of Iowans in these fields and from everyday Iowans who have stepped up to support one another. "If you are always … gonna wait for the government to do it, don't," Mommsen said. "Because just look at, (as) we were talking earlier, there was funding in these areas, and now they're gone. So I would use creativity, and then whatever the government helps, that's gravy." Never a dull moment! Subscribe to the free DecorahNews.com newsletter and stay one step ahead with local news and information you just can't get anywhere else.