Lauren E Hernandez

Statesman Journal

Oregon recorded its sharpest increase in food insecurity of any state in the nation during the past three years, despite the state's steady economic growth.

The Oregon Center for Public Policy released a report analyzing United States Department of Agriculture data showing one in six Oregon households were food insecure between 2013 and 2015. The USDA defines food insecurity as having reduced or disrupted eating patterns due to lack of money or other resources for food.

"We are very agriculturally based in the valley and I don’t know why there are so many food insecure communities," said Elise Bauman, executive director of Salem Harvest, a nonprofit organization that connects volunteer pickers with farmers to harvest food that would otherwise go to waste.

By the Numbers

Food insecurity households in Oregon spiked to 18.4 percent between 2013 and 2015 compared to data collected from 2010 to 2012, when the nation was recovering from the Great Recession.

As food insecurity increased, the state experienced economic growth and additions to the job market on a monthly basis.

In September, Governor Kate Brown said Oregon was in its 50th straight month of job growth, with nearly 5,000 jobs added per month in various markets since 2014.

Despite this job growth, Oregon is ranked the sixth worst in food insecurity and eighth worst in hunger, according to the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

While nationwide hunger decreased by 3.6 percent between 2010 and 2015, Oregon hunger increased by 13.8 percent during that same period.

John Burt, executive director of Farmers Ending Hunger, a partnership of farmers, food processors and Oregon Food Bank focused on eliminating hunger, said it's hard to understand how a state that produces a good portion of the nation's food could still remain so hungry.

Burt points to the cost of housing and unlivable wages as factors in households being unable to eat on a regular basis.

"If you’re faced between rent and buying food, you have to pay rent, utilities and gas for the car," Burt said. "If the car needs repair, or you need to pay a co-pay for doctors appointment, the thing you can't buy is food."

Although Oregon has seen a boost in job growth in recent months, leading the nation with an increase of 3.5 percent in September, paired with a plateau of unemployment rate at 4.5 percent as of March of this year, Burt said many of these jobs are low-paying and don't provide livable wages for people to afford food.

"There will always be people by circumstance who lose their jobs, divorce, are single parents or they come back to their jobs after the Great Recession that doesn't pay as well," Burt said. "There is a record number of new jobs in Oregon, but in my perception, those jobs don’t pay as much."

According to American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample compiled in 2014, Oregon families who are considered to be working poor families, those with at least one parent working, increased from 10 percent to 12.7 percent from 2007 to 2014.

Minimum wage's potential effects

Oregon's recently enacted three-tier minimum wage rate, Senate Bill 1532, a series of annual minimum wage increases that began in July of this year and lasts through July 1, 2022, may help families suffering from food insecurity, said Matt Newell-Ching, public affairs director of Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon. Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon is a nonprofit organization that tries to connect families in need with food assistance programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The three-tier system breaks the state into rural counties, economically stable counties referred to as "standard" counties and the Portland Metro area.

On July 1, 2017, standard counties (like Marion and Polk counties) will increase from the current $9.75 wage to $10.25, Portland Metro will increase from $9.75 to $11.25, and rural counties will increase from $9.50 to $10.00.

"It's going to take a while to see what the minimum wage impacts will be, but the fact is that people experience hunger because they don’t have enough income to cover their basic needs," Newell-Ching said. "With the minimum wage increase I think we’ll see more families being able to cover those basic needs."

SNAP provided $85.6 million in benefits to 697,560 persons in 394,517 households in Oregon in October of this month alone, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Newell-Ching said although SNAP and other food assistance programs do cover a portion of food purchases for the month, it's not nearly enough, especially for families who have children.

"For a lot of folks, they're are getting back to work, which is great, but there are folks out on those margins that still have great need but they are just above the cut-off to qualify for SNAP," Newell-Ching said. "So we are seeing families that are turning to food pantries earlier and earlier in the month."

In 2014, there were 75,000 Oregonians in households with at least one full time worker yet still were below the poverty line, according to the American Community Survey.

Farmers sow seeds of giving

Burt said Farmers Ending Hungers partners with Oregon farmers and producers to ensure families in need have access to locally grown food in an effort to remedy food insecurity. The organization provides food boxes to various food banks and hunger-relief agencies through a partnership with the Oregon Food Bank.

Oregon provides the majority of the nation's berry supply, including 100 percent of the nation's blackberries, boysenberries, black raspberries and hazelnuts, according US Census of Agriculture data compiled in 2012. Field crops like corn, wheat, oats and potatoes follow close behind berry production, valuing more than $300 million in 2015, according to an Oregon State University estimate.

Burt said farmers and producers carry a responsibility to provide food goods to communities in need, citing agricultural abundance as a source for families suffering from food insecurity.

"We donated 4 million-plus pounds of food last year," Burt said, referring to the network of farmers, ranchers, producers, processors and handlers that donate food to the statewide network of 20 regional food banks withing Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

Bauman joins Burt in believing the food insecurity and hunger issues in Oregon will not be solved as long as the underlying socio-economic issues are tackled at the state level.

"It's just alleviating the problem, but it's not solving the problem," Bauman said.

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