Creating food connections: Corvallis' Ten Rivers Food Web

From KLCC Studios, this is Oregon on the Record.

I'm Michael Dunn. Perhaps it seems like a million years ago, but it wasn't that far back in our past where the farms and ranches of the Willamette Valley actually fed all the people who live here. After all, it is a rich agricultural area. But of course, globalization has created a food system where your food staples probably come from states, nations, and even continents away. But in that race to make our food cheaper and more efficient, we've lost real connection between local farmers and everybody else. Today on the show, you'll meet a nonprofit in Corvallis that's working to reestablish these connections and in the process, help develop a better food web. Then in the last part of our show, our reporter will update us on the potential strike that could drastically impact colleges throughout Oregon. That's next on Oregon on the Record. Despite living in one of the most fertile and vibrant agricultural areas in the nation, we still experience food insecurity in the Willamette Valley. And despite our global food system that rings out every last dime and avenue of efficiency, people in our community still go hungry. Right now, you'll hear from a local nonprofit working to create connections to make our local food system more secure. Kirsten Miller, the director of 10 Rivers Food Web. Kirsten, thank you so much for coming on the program.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, let's just start with this. Tell us about 10 Rivers, what you do and who you serve.

Yeah, so we work to build a resilient local food web in Benton, Lynn, and Lincoln counties.

So let's start with this. What makes a food web resilient? And then, of course, the opposite side of that question is what destabilizes a food web?

yeah so what stabilizes a food web are the three kind of core tenants of the work that we do so we work to build community resilience so that means that in times of emergency that we have infrastructure in place that we have connections happening between farms and eaters and we can move food quickly that also means with the change in climate that we are also prepared for that We also work on strengthening local farms and the economy by supporting local farmers, making connections between their sales. So we have that already at the farmers market, but we don't have that infrastructure for institutions. And so that's why we started the Mid Valley Food Hub, which sells local food to institutions, so we work with 10 different farms. What stabilizes a local food web is relationships, having connections between the people that grow food, the people that are moving food, and the people that are eating. The work that we do is relational and not transactional and is those connections that will make our community resilient in the future. The things that would throw us off is if only a small section of our community is able to access local food. That means we are all at more risk of not supporting the entire food web.

So tell us about the programs that you administer at your nonprofit.

Yeah, so we have four programs. We have the Mid Valley Food Hub, Fill Your Pantry, we have an online directory, and a soil amendment sale. So our newest