Tennessee’s first-ever Food Security Summit will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Feb. 16, at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Mayor Karl Dean will address the expected crowd of over 250 farmers, chefs, retailers, health and service providers, gardeners and interested citizens at 10 a.m.
The event’s goal is to begin a community dialogue about connections between food, farming, health, economic development and the environment. It is hosted by the Food Security Partners of Tennessee, a project of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, and is free and open to the public.
“We like to say that we ‘put food on the table,'” Cassi Johnson, Food Security Partners director, said. “Many of our region’s most pressing issues – including hunger, poverty, obesity, land use, development and the depletion of natural resources – are connected to food. This summit is an opportunity to join together as a community to create positive changes in our food system and our region.”
In addition to presentations by local experts, the summit will feature a keynote presentation and in-depth workshops led by three fellows from the W.K. Kellogg Food and Society Policy Program: Anthony Flaccavento of Appalachian Sustainable Development, LaDonna Redmond of the Institute for Community Resource Development and Preston Maring of Kaiser Permanente. Topics to be covered include the health impacts of the food system, policies for promoting food security, food and the environment, community gardening and more.
The summit will address some of the most critical health and quality of life issues facing Tennessee in 2008. The state is ranked 48th nationally in overall health status. Over 60 percent of Tennesseans are overweight or obese. Although these numbers are expected to rise, the number of Tennesseans going hungry is also on the rise, with the number of families with children requesting emergency food assistance increasing by 10 percent in Nashville between 2004 and 2005. Local food production is dropping and farmers are aging, with the average age of farmers in Tennessee being 56, and land used for farming decreasing by 11 percent in the state since 1982.
The Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee has over 100 partners and members involved in all parts of the Middle Tennessee food system. In addition to support from Vanderbilt University, the project is also funded through community support, including the LifeWorks Foundation and the Frist Foundation. The Feb. 16 event is supported by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, the Vanderbilt Center for Child and Family Policy, Vanderbilt Peabody College, Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Marketplace, and many additional community sponsors.
Westminster Presbyterian Church is located at 3900 West End Ave. For more information about the summit, contact Cassi Johnson at (615) 322-5638 or cassi.a.johnson@vanderbilt.edu, or visit the Food Security Partners website: www.foodsecuritypartners.org/.
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Media Contact: Melanie Moran, (615) 322-NEWS
melanie.moran@vanderbilt.edu