Closer to Home: Healthier Food, Farms and Families in Oklahoma

Closer to Home: Healthier Food Farms and Families in Oklahoma is the first look at Oklahoma’s food system from farm to table.

With this report, the Kerr Center helped increase public understanding of our food system broadening and deepening the discussion of what we can do to make our fields and tables healthier.

Since publication in 2007, the report has served as a catalyst for

• expanded local food markets
• farm-to-school and child nutrition programs
• legislative enquiry into food deserts
• anti-hunger campaigns

and much more.

The report served as the basis of two editorials and a four part series on hunger in the Tulsa Worldin December 2008.

And it continues to be influential, serving as a model for reports in other states and cities.

Closer to Home has a reader-friendly format. The report features about two dozen magazine-style articles about innovative people, businesses and programs contributing positively to community food security in Oklahoma.

The profiles run the gamut from a successful community garden at a small country school in Delaware County, to Oklahoma’s own regional dairy, Braum’s.

Alongside the profiles, we examine the community food security issues raised by the articles.

For example, alongside a profile of the Oklahoma Farm-to-School program, we explore the diet-related health problems of Oklahoma’s kids.

Along with a profile of the Muskogee Farmers’ Market, we investigate the economic potential of farmers selling direct to consumers.

Information on

• historical food production
• current agricultural production
• local food marketing
• economic advantages of local markets
• diet and health
• childrens’ health
• hunger
• food deserts

were combined to paint an in-depth portrait and analysis of food and agriculture in the Sooner State as Oklahoma as celebrated its centennial in 2007—with an eye towards a healthier future.

This report takes a closer look at several counties in Oklahoma in the series of “county snapshots” that are paired with profiles throughout.

The county snapshots are serving as a starting point for groups who want to conduct a more in-depth assessment of their community’s food security.

Indeed, Closer to Home was meant to be an ice-breaker, a conversation starter, a catalyst for further study and action to improve Oklahoma’s food system so that it serves everyone well.

To this end, in each chapter we propose a number of steps that individuals, community groups and institutions might take to make the state healthier in its second 100 years.