It’s a cruel irony that so many Arkansans go hungry while farming remains one of the state’s biggest industries, and it’s not lost on Hallie Shoffner.
As CEO of Delta Harvest and an Arkansas Foodbank board member, Shoffner has a unique perspective of how the two worlds operate, where they overlap and, perhaps most importantly, where they don’t.
“Arkansas has a robust agricultural economy, and yet is one of the most food insecure states in the country. This is unacceptable,” she says. “The Arkansas Foodbank is helping feed the state and advocating on behalf of the people of Arkansas. They are taking bold, innovative and data-driven steps to not only provide food, but find the root causes of hunger and address those.”
In 1984, the Arkansas Foodbank launched to supply affordable food services to local agencies, then merged with the farmer-driven Arkansas Rice Depot in 2016. Today, the nonprofit entered its 40th year having distributed more than half a billion pounds of food, making it the largest hunger relief organization in Arkansas.
The Foodbank is a hub for more than 300 hunger relief charities across 33 counties. It serves as what chief development officer Sarah Riffle calls “the acquisition and distribution point,” collecting food items to give to member pantries to then share with families facing hunger in their communities. It’s a simple idea, but Riffle is quick to point out the importance of understanding the complexity of hunger and the continuous effort needed to address it effectively.
Member pantries are very diverse, including church pantries, shelters, schools and after-school and summer child care facilities. Last year alone, the Foodbank distributed more than 40 million pounds of food through these partnerships.
“In Arkansas, one in six residents face food insecurity, meaning they do not always know where their next meal will come from,” director of external affairs Ebony Mitchell says. “This issue is especially pronounced in children, with one in five children experiencing food insecurity, and among minority communities, where disparities are starkly evident.”
To combat these statistics, the Arkansas Foodbank deploys its Food for Families and Food for Kids programs.
Food for Families provides access to healthy and nutritious food by supporting local agencies. Small grants help agencies build capacity and purchase equipment, while training sessions are conducted to teach best practices and new programs are designed and implemented for tackling barriers to food security. Meanwhile, a mobile pop-up pantry provides direct distribution at centralized locations all over Arkansas.
The Food for Kids program partners with similar groups to make sure children receive food over the weekend, after school or throughout the summer months. Their main strategies for ensuring access to nutritious food is by sending items home in backpacks, stocking school pantries and hosting summer feeding sites.
But one of the biggest hurdles Shoffner faces in and outside the fields is disrupting how people think about food sources.
“Americans have little to no relationship with where their food comes from, and that puts us at a disadvantage in advocating on our own behalf if something threatens that supply,” Shoffner says. “It doesn’t matter whether that supply comes through a grocery store or a food bank. Having a relationship with where your food comes from, understanding how it gets from the source to your table, that’s valuable knowledge.”
Part of that knowledge includes understanding the disconnect between a thriving farming economy and rampant hunger. As agriculturally rich as the Delta is, Shoffner says, it lacks a robust offering of nutritious crops that actually feed the community. Soybeans and corn are two of the most popular and lucrative, but much of that is exported, and the corn is typically grown as animal feed.
With this in mind, Shoffner says her involvement with the Foodbank has already inspired her work at Delta Harvest.
“For my part, as a farmer having a relationship with the Arkansas Foodbank and understanding their mission and process in providing people with nutritious food, it inspires me to diversify my operation, which is primarily commodity crops,” she says.
As part of those diversification efforts, Delta Harvest also serves as the first regional food hub in the area. The operation connects small- to mid-sized farmers with food buyers, businesses and consumers while promoting environmental sustainability, social justice and economic development, with hopes of encouraging others to do the same.
“Arkansas Foodbank has opened our eyes to not just the problem, but a solution for feeding Arkansans by encouraging more farmers to produce and equitably distribute healthy food throughout our state,” says Shoffner, who donated some of her own specialty rice to raise awareness of the role she believes agriculture should play in the Foodbank mission.
Meanwhile, the Foodbank has set several ambitious goals to ring in its milestone year. These include expanding its reach through new partnerships, raising an additional $400,000 in operating support and increasing the distribution of nutritious food, particularly fresh produce. The organization will also host Central Arkansas Restaurant Weeks Sept. 9-20 to raise awareness and funds.
Strengthening its volunteer base and enhancing community engagement are also top of mind for the organization. The biggest needs currently include serving shifts at the volunteer operations center, organizing food drives and creating personal fundraisers. Riffle says financial donations are the most effective way to support the mission, as every dollar donated provides enough food for five meals.
“As we celebrate our 40th anniversary at the Arkansas Foodbank, we want everyone to know about our enduring commitment to fighting hunger and our appreciation for the community’s support over the years,” Riffle says. “We’re excited about the fresh energy and diverse perspectives that our new board members bring, which will help guide us forward.”
Shoffner sees the possibilities, too.
“There are advantages in a truly collaborative, back-and-forth relationship between the farming community and the Arkansas Foodbank,” she says. “We can learn from the distribution model the Foodbank has to better understand food supply chains and how we can interact with those in a better, more efficient way for people who are hungry.”
Learn more at arkansasfoodbank.org.
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