Food forum generates different ideas
BY LARRY MEYER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:43 AM PDT
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| Janie Burns, co-chair of Treasure Valley Food Coalition, speaks during the Community Food Forum at Treasure Valley Community College Friday. |
ONTARIO — The approximately 80 people gathered at the food forum at Treasure Valley Community College Friday agreed something should be done.
The consensus was more opportunities should be developed for local food producers to market their product and local consumers to access their products all in ways that support the area’s agricultural base and provide people with nutritious food despite economic and other barriers, such as location.
To that end, the focus groups at Friday’s Community Food Forum, held in the Weese Building, recommended ongoing activities include enhancement or expansion of local farmers markets to increase direct sales of product; identifying barriers people have in accessing local food; and finding ways to overcome them. The emphasis was on rebuilding and sustaining local food production.
The food forum was the outcome of research on food and agriculture in Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho by Katie Weaver, an AmeriCorps volunteer in the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments program.
The keynote speaker was Janie Burns, who grew up north of Ontario and is co-owner of a poultry and rabbit processing business in New Plymouth. Burns is also actively engaged in efforts throughout the region to rebuild a sustainable, local food system in the Treasure Valley.
Burns noted, back in the 1930s and 1940s, there was a greater variety of crops produced in the valley and facilities to process or package them.
“What really opened up Malheur County to farming was Owyhee Dam,” she said.
People raised chickens, beef cows, sheep and turkeys.
“There were orchards. We had potatoes. There was celery and lettuce. We had the ability to pack it,” she said.
In 1957, there were 10 meat processors in the Treasure Valley and five flour mills, Burns said.
“In the 1940s, people were encouraged to grow their own gardens,” she said.
After 1960, the attitude was, “If we don’t grow it, we can buy it in town,” Burns said.
“We didn’t grow everything anymore,” she continued.
Stores have only enough food for three days, she said.
While there are still a variety of crops grown in the valley, Burns noted the agriculture industry in Malheur County is primarily centered on two crops, cattle and onions, not unlike other areas of the country. The only USDA-certified processing plant in the area is situated in Nampa, she said.
Andrea Malmberg, executive director of Oregon Rural Action, said the meat-processing industry is now mainly controlled by four companies, and eight out of 10 beef animals will go through their processing facilities.
Burns said the current picture makes people dependent on food produced and processed in other areas.
Diversity provides more opportunities for people to get more local fresh food, but it helps the local economy, providing more jobs, which was Burns’ message and the message of the forum in general. It also helps the growers’ bottom line, it was noted.
“We can do more to help ourselves,” Burns said.
Larry Meyer is a reporter for the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at LarryM@argusobserver.com
