Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Renee Shaw.

We thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Our topic tonight food insecurity.

It appears there is a deal in place to end the now 41 day federal government shutdown, but the Trump administration still wants the U.S.

Supreme Court to allow it to keep SNAP or food stamp payments on hold.

About 42 million Americans and about 600,000 Kentuckians receive SNAP to help put food on the table.

And uncertainty about the program is prompting state action and new food drives to keep Kentuckians fed.

And this isn't a new problem.

Even before the shutdown, the organization Feeding Kentucky reported 700,000 Kentuckians faced food insecurity, including 200,000 children.

Now to discuss all this, we have six guests with us in our Lexington studio, beginning with Michael Halligan, president and chief executive officer of God's Pantry Food Bank.

Melissa McDonald, executive director of Feeding Kentucky.

Dana Feldman, executive director of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Office of Consumer and Environmental Protection.

Alison Gustafson, executive director, food as Health at the University of Kentucky Martin Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

State Senator Jason Howell, a Republican from Murray and chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and State Representative Chad Hall, a Democrat from Lexington and member of the House Agriculture Committee.

We certainly want to hear from you tonight.

You can send us your questions and comments by X, formerly known as Twitter at Pub Affairs KET or send an email to KY Tonight at ket.org or use the web form at ket.org KY Tonight.

Or you can simply give us a call at one 800 494 7605.

Welcome to our full house of guests.

We appreciate you being here on this kind of blustery, cold, and somewhat snowy evening.

We cannot believe it.

It's just November the 10th and we're already talking about snow.

So we hope that you all are safe at home.

And if you have to get out, please use caution.

So let's kind of bring our audience up to speed.

There's a lot of developments today.

Chad Aull when it comes to what there seems to be a breakthrough on the budget impasse.

But when it comes to SNAP, are we there yet?

And restoring those payments and what's happening on the state level to help folks who are food insecure?

>> Well, I think we'll talk about the state level first, because I think that's a little bit more simple.

So the governor last week declared a state of emergency and released $5 million out of the rainy day fund to go to feeding Kentucky.

That's going to be distributed throughout the rest of the state to help some of the food banks mitigate some of the immediate emergency we are seeing across the across the state with hunger on on the federal level, I think the picture is better, but not 100% clear.

There is a deal apparently in place in the Senate.

It still has to work its way through Washington, get over to the House and get out.

And then above and beyond that, it's how long does that deal stay in place?

Is it going to get passed?

And what happens in the meantime?

Because people are hungry right now.

Today, as we sit here in the studio and have this conversation and unfortunately, this administration, to your point in the opening, has made the proactive choice not to feed our people.

There's been plenty of administrations in the past, both Democrat and Republican, during the times of shutdown, who have decided to go ahead with those SNAP payments.

So this is a decision that the administration has made to punish people who are on Snap.

And that's just not acceptable, because when you're hungry, it's not a Democrat issue.

It's not a Republican issue, it's a person.

It's a people issue.

And we are punishing those who need our help the most right now, today.

>> Senator, how how do you see it?

Do you feel that the Trump administration is deliberately punishing people who are food insecure?

And do you agree with the governor's move to take $5 million from the Budget Reserve Trust Fund, sometimes called the Rainy Day Fund, to help get those payments to feeding Kentucky distribute to those in need?

>> I think it's important to think about a couple of things in perspective.

One, the budget the Congress shut.

Being shut down isn't part of the administration.

That's Congress.

That's their prerogatives.

On whether they pass something or not.

And it's not about the decision to feed people or not through SNAP.

That is one of the many things that are caught up in this disagreement in Washington with the gridlock that they've been that they've been experiencing, working through a bunch of different issues.

Well, I think it's good that the governor did go and finally release some money to to address some of this issue from a short term, unfortunately.

And I think it's something we need to be conscious of all along, is the food insecurity issue existed long before this government shutdown.

And it will.

It will exist long after everything is worked out in the Snap.

Benefits get restored.

And that's some of the things that I think that that we need to continue to focus on.

Maybe we can use this situation in the short term to focus more positive attention on addressing the long term issues of food insecurity.

>> There was some question that many had about, can the governor just take $5 million from the rainy day fund to do this?

And I guess there's not an issue, because I haven't heard there being much dissension about that decision.

Can you clarify that for us, representative?

>> I think there's been language added into the budget that in a time of emergency, the General Assembly has given a small leeway on what the governor can do in those times when he does declare.

>> And not to exceed a certain amount.

>> Not to exceed a certain amount.

And so I think that's why he chose that $5 million amount, because it was under that threshold that gave him the authority to provide that executive action.

>> And I think sometimes when we think of states of emergency, we think of natural disasters.

And so perhaps this expanded that definition of what could be declared a state of emergency because it is about food relief and not about disaster relief.

>> And I'm thankful to the governor for thinking outside the box, using this as an opportunity to stand in that gap where families are hungry right now, today, he's done that action and hopefully it provides some relief for some time until the federal government can either decide to release the SNAP funding that they've been ordered by the courts to do so, or we can get a deal through the Congress to go back to the way it was.

>> Yes.

Just finally on this point, Senator Howell, so there is no uncomfortableness with the Republicans or members in your caucus in the Senate about what the governor has done, that you feel this was an appropriate action to take, given the circumstances?

>> I don't think there's any level of uncomfortableness in either caucus in either chamber on doing what we need to do to keep people that that are on this edge of food insecurity fed wherever we can.

>> Yeah.

So now I want to go to Melissa McDonnell because you are overfeeding Kentucky.

So this money was directed to your agency.

The state health cabinet directs that to you.

Is that money gone to the people who need it?

How fast can they get that help?

>> So the money went out early last week directly to the seven partner food banks that we work with.

And so then the food banks were able to distribute that those dollars, either to their agency partners or to be able to purchase more dollars, I mean, more food for their distribution centers to then send the food out.

So, yes, the food is the the dollars have turned into food and that has been distributed across 120 counties.

>> For those who were expecting perhaps to see money on their EBT card, they might have been confused by what the governor did and you've just stated it.

But perhaps it's worth reiterating.

>> Completely and completely understanding that there was the confusion of how the dollars were to be allocated.

The dollars were directly given to us to be 100% direct through to the seven partner food banks that we work with, and then they were to turn around and purchase only food, to be able to distribute out to the agency partners that they work with, that are all in their service areas that cover the 120 counties.

>> And to make sure that those who are in food insecure and who do rely on SNAP knew about this happening, right?

Was that a big barrier or not?

>> To a certain degree, it was.

I think there was a lot of there had to be some last minute social media, the last minute communications that went out to either just through our individual channels.

The food banks were already starting to see an increase in their visitors, the neighbors that were coming for food all the way back to the beginning of the shutdown.

Because we have to remember this.

This is a disaster.

To be honest.

We saw this.

And so the rainy day funds we saw going directly to a disaster is what it went to.

And to be able to understand that there were also not just the Snap recipients that had the pause and their benefits, but we also are talking about federal employees that were going, you know, one, two paychecks not being received.

And so they were also starting to show up to our food banks, and they were showing up looking for assistance, because they may never have had this happen to them before.

So it was those additional dollars have been able to be very beneficial to these food banks and their agency partners to be able to ensure that they have extra food for anyone that's showing up.

>> Was 5 million enough?

>> I think that's yet to be determined.

I think we have to see how long the federal government may potentially stay closed.

Also, we know that there's going to still be a little bit of a gap in terms of if the federal government were to be open this week, those benefits are not going to be immediately turned over, because they're still going to be some nuances of technicalities that have to be taken into consideration.

And then the other thing that you have to I always want to reiterate is that the food banks are not to become the replacement for SNAP.

So Snap benefits those dollars.

They're able to actually go further than what the food banks are.

So we always say that a food bank can provide that one meal versus Snap benefits can provide up to nine meals for so many different reasons.

One, a food bank is there to be able to come into that crunch time when it's ultimately needed, whereas a Snap benefits you're able to shop at in Kentucky.

Close to 5000 retailers in the state of Kentucky, except snap, those retailers are open more often than a food bank or a pantry is so yet to be determined.

If 5 million will be enough.

>> Yeah.

Mr.

Halligan of God's Pantry, you've said and we've talked before in the last couple of weeks, that food insecurity in central and eastern Kentucky is at an all time high.

How has it been exacerbated because of the federal government shut down?

And did you have enough supply to meet the increasing demand?

>> So I would say that the on the supply question, it's an important stopgap to provide immediate relief to the extent that we can.

One way to think about Snap and central and eastern Kentucky, the monthly benefit is $40 million a month.

The annual impact of God's Pantry food bank in terms of our services and the food, is $80 million a year.

So Snap is six times what the food bank can do 40 million a month versus 80 million a year.

So important stopgap.

What we've seen, if you can, there's about 500 food pantries, meal programs that are part of the network that we serve first week in October compared to the first week in November, a 40% increase in demand.

You mentioned a minute ago food insecurity.

It's at an all time high.

Before the shutdown of about 280,000 people.

That's 18.2%.

If you take that 40% increase in demand and you annualize it, that's another 110,000 people.

That puts it at almost 400,000 people on an annualized basis.

So the impact right now is dramatic.

There's a second thing I think it's important to to bring up.

So not only do we have the funding authorized by the governor, but the impact of community engagement has been amazing.

There are food drives happening everywhere here in Lexington, all across central and eastern Kentucky, all across the commonwealth of Kentucky.

That engagement of people is making an immediate difference this week, while that funding is spent and that product that we are purchasing gets to the food bank so that we can then get it out to all of those pantries.

>> And not that you wish for a prolonged endorsement of this whole debacle.

With the government shutdown and delaying of Snap benefits.

But how do you keep that level of community engagement going, where people still are motivated to donate and to help out food pantries like yourself?

>> You know, so we all often talk about Kentuckians being resilient, and we all talk about how much we care for one another.

And right now, we are seeing that more than any time in our history, there are probably two times, right?

One was the pandemic and one was the Great Depression in the 30s, where people really leaned in and helped one another get through, get through the circumstances.

I don't know how long people can sustain that energy because it's draining.

The energy level right now is incredibly high.

It's incredibly helpful.

How long will it last?

>> Yeah, as long as the news cycles may aid and abet.

Right.

Dana Feldman, in response to the federal government shutdown, the State Department has been very active in helping to coalesce organizations to provide contributions to help tell us about what's going on with the Department of Agriculture.

>> Yes.

Thank you.

The Commissioner of Agriculture, Jonathan Schell, was able to coordinate different groups and different partners to put together food boxes, primarily vegetables, to assist in getting those boxes out to the food banks across the state.

And we worked with our partner, Melissa at Feeding Kentucky to make that happen.

But there was a need, and the calls were received to say, how can I help?

Just what Mr.

Halligan talked about, how can I help my fellow Kentuckians?

And so the commissioner helped coordinate that effort to get about $150,000 in very quickly, and then also some donations of of beef, of chicken from Tyson as well, to just to say, what can we do quickly to help.

>> Yeah.

So I'm going to go over here to Doctor Gustafson.

And in the meantime, we're going to have someone help Mr.

Halligan get his mic back on.

So this is live television, so we're going to have someone come around and kind of help him assist in that.

So I want to come to you, doctor.

Thank you so very much for being with us in your work.

Food insecurity is what you do, right?

So talk about how this issue in many ways has given rise to the conversation about food insecurity in a way that is both good and bad.

>> Yes.

So I've been researching and working in the food insecurity space for most of my career, and I think this highlights two different unique aspects.

One is hunger, and a lot of the people in this room are addressing hunger.

And so when someone is hungry, they can turn to a food pantry.

They can.

And then that food bank helps that pantry.

But what we also see is sometimes there's a prolonged food insecurity issue.

And that's where SNAP comes into play.

And so it's this layering that we've seen, and we really find that SNAP helps people address food insecurity, and that it may or may not help improve those health outcomes.

And so people are now noticing, oh, I have type two diabetes.

I need access to healthy food.

Because now that I've gone a month without eating appropriate food for my diabetes, I can't handle my medication appropriately.

Oh, I have hypertension.

I can't handle my medication for my hypertension because now I can't access food.

And so our program and our lens is to address food insecurity helps the health of Kentuckians.

And that's what we want.

We want healthy Kentuckians.

>> Yeah.

And you look at the bigger system of health care, right.

So talk to us about that from a clinical perspective too.

>> Right.

Exactly.

And so typically what we find is those who are food insecure, have type two diabetes, have high risk pregnancy, have high rates of cardiovascular disease, those who have type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the opposite have higher rates of food insecurity.

So if we can address that food insecurity, we can save health care dollars, right?

>> And food insecurity doesn't always mean a scarcity of food.

It's scarcity of nutritious food.

>> Food.

Yeah, exactly.

Renee.

>> Which is more expensive?

By and large.

>> By and large, it can be more expensive, but we can help elevate and educate people to understand how to use food in a healthy way while stretching their food dollar.

So through food coping strategies, stretching your dollar in a healthy way, you can utilize your Snap benefit in a healthy way.

And also you kind of learn those skills of how to use it.

How do you prepare for it?

How do you cook?

And then maybe you garden on the side.

Maybe you do some of these.

You visit a farmer's market for the double dollar program.

It isn't to say snap is the only thing, right?

It's one of many resources.

And I think there's sometimes an overreliance that snap is going to be the cure all.

It's not the cure all.

It's one attribute in the whole entire food system.

And so our partners in the Kentucky Medicaid space, all of our health insurance partners, they're at the table.

They are committed to addressing food insecurity for their members.

>> Right.

It's an economic issue for them.

Right?

It's a financial decision.

>> And they want to see the return on investment.

And so here's an example for a food as medicine program for $1 you spend you get $3 in return.

Who wouldn't like that deal.

>> Right.

>> Right.

So every $1 you put in you get three back.

And so we are finding in our state insurance is at the table.

Health care providers are at the table.

Obviously our ag and food partners are at the table as well.

But we want to use this food insecurity to address health outcomes at the same time.

>> And we rank pretty low.

I mean, we remember doctor Lee Todd, who used to be the president of University of Kentucky, and he used the phrase and maybe he even coined it The Kentucky Uglies.

And we know that sometimes we still are battling those Kentucky ranks fifth in poverty, second highest in the percentage of adults reporting fair or poor health and the fifth lowest in life expectancy.

So how do we know that what you're doing is going to reverse those numbers where we're not at the bottom of the good list, at the top of the bad?

>> Yeah, exactly.

So we've already we also know we'll add high risk pregnancy to our list as well.

So I think one one solution, one avenue is really to say how do we in the state utilize a food as medicine framework.

So so we have SNAP in a healthy way.

We also provide through insurance an added benefit through a healthy way to say we're going to reduce those rates of diabetes, reduce rates of cardiovascular disease, and we have to track those numbers.

Our state is committed to that.

Our current cabinet has lots of funding and support for us to evaluate those programs over time, so that we can turn back to our legislators and say, this was a good return on investment, and we have to show that.

We have to show it's a good return on investment.

>> Yeah.

So I want to go to Miss Feldman because food is medicine is what you all are doing, right?

I mean, you all have adopted this principle.

So explain what it looks like underneath your agency.

>> Absolutely.

So about May of 2024, Commissioner Shell and the Kentucky Hospital Association launched a Food as medicine initiative.

And its purpose is twofold.

A lot of it is what was already discussed.

Healthy food in can lead to healthy outcomes.

It can drive down rates of chronic disease in our state, which we know that we need.

But the other layer two is use local products in the food as medicine work, so it also increases farmer gate farm gate impact.

It also increases rural economy and rural development.

But why not use local products in the food is medicine work?

And we have seen that happen at your your institute as well.

So it is working.

We're also using food as medicine platform to get more local, healthy, fresh, nutritious products into the cafeterias.

So it's also employee health at our hospitals.

It's patient health.

It's the visitors who come in maybe are choosing healthier options at the cafeteria.

A lot of our partners, we have more than 50 hospitals now who have actually called and said, I want to be part of food as medicine in some way.

It doesn't look the same way for every hospital.

Every hospital is different.

Their size is different, their community is different.

But one of our first partners was Appalachian Regional Health, and they are doing a lot of work with employee health care initiatives.

They do a pop up farmer's market in their parking lot in Hazzard, I believe, and they're finding that patients are making more of their doctor's visits.

On the day that the farmer's market is in place, you can come and do your do your doctor's visit, maybe see some friends shop at the market, and they're also doing a voucher for employees to go and use at the market on that day as well.

So food is medicine is is just as multi-layered as some of the other programs that we've talked about.

But there's a lot of layers to it, and we think that it will start to change the landscape of what people expect from their food and from their outcomes, and then also help with a rural economy in the state.

>> So you help introduce folks to that new behavioral choice, right.

But then it's also making sure that they follow through with it.

Right.

And so by having their doctor's appointments sync with when the food markets are available, that probably helps.

But then what do they do the rest of the time.

Right.

What kind of choices are they making when there's not that local availability of food there?

>> Well, I think it's what was just discussed that it's just one piece and it has to come with education.

It has to come with a conversation with physicians.

Physicians also need to be able to sit down with patients and say, how is how is your diet?

And I know that happens a lot with some of the chronic outcomes and chronic diagnoses that we have, but it also has to be a relationship between the patient and the physician as well, to say, here's here's some resources for you.

Extension has wonderful resources to UK extension, but trying to just get the resources to folks so they know we talk a lot about the butternut squash.

If you give someone a butternut squash, do they know how to cook it?

Do they know how to prepare it?

Do they know all the great things that they can do with that?

They may not?

And that's just education and just trying to get some outreach there for for healthier eating.

>> So having classes that help you on how to cook those things, those items.

Right.

So what are the food pantries kind of come into this conversation about food as medicine?

>> It's a really good question.

I think it's still yet kind of figure out some of them are more advanced.

And so some of them are actually working with the hospitals.

And in fact, I have to point over to to God's Pantry.

They actually have some food as medicine projects that are connected with hospital systems.

So kind of more of a food pharmacy perspective to be able to make sure that when they're working with the physicians, when the physicians are screening them for food insecurity and they get flagged for that, they're able to immediately say, perfect, we have an opportunity for you to pick up a produce box or a food box downstairs at the pharmacy, or connect them to a pantry that may be connected with that hospital in that area.

>> Yeah.

Mr.

Halligan yeah.

>> So that program started a few years ago with the VA here in Lexington.

We were one of a handful of food banks around the country that was partnering with the Veterans Administration to test the hypothesis of immediate intervention of healthy, nutritious food for efficacy of treatment.

Today, there are 53 health care based pantries in central and eastern Kentucky.

Partnering with many of the hospitals.

RH is one.

There are several others, and what happens is the community health care worker in the in the hospital, the medical center, they will screen someone for food insecurity.

And if they screen positive, right.

There's an immediate intervention of food that day.

And there's a referral to the nearest food pantry meal program to where someone lives so they can maintain that nutrition.

And working with the doctors know what foods are the most appropriate to improve the health outcome.

There's a second piece to this that I think is really important.

So we talk a lot about health outcome.

There's actually two more really important outcomes.

One is educational outcome for kids.

So imagine a child who's got a health condition.

But there are also struggling in school.

So now you get the benefit of a health outcome.

Plus you get the benefit of an educational outcome because you've got better nutrition.

And there's also a jobs an economic impact for someone who has a health outcome.

They're more productive in the workplace.

They're safer in the workplace.

If they're not working, they've got an opportunity to do better in an interview.

So we often talk about the food, but the outcomes are really all about health, work and education.

>> Yeah.

So do you see that that connection representative?

>> Yes, I do, but I think it's important to point out we're talking about education and teaching people who are receiving these benefits.

We had an entire program and department that this was their sole responsibility.

SNAP Ed was to educate people who received Snap benefits to know about the double dollars program, to know how to use their benefit to cook healthy and nutritious meals.

They had recipes.

They had, you know, hundreds of people at University of Kentucky.

This was their sole job or responsibility.

And they did this and that entire department here in Kentucky and across the country was eliminated by the big whatever you want to call it, bill that passed Congress.

So we're duplicating new programs that try to do new things to teach people.

When we had the infrastructure already in place to do that exact same thing.

Now it's great.

I think food and medicine is a wonderful program.

It's going to do a lot of good in the Commonwealth, but we're shooting ourselves in the foot on the left side, and then we're trying to reduplicate and do the other thing on the right side.

If we left the program in place, we would have been a lot better shape right now.

Today.

>> Yeah.

Chairman, how how do you see it?

>> I think that what doesn't need to get lost in all of this is how incredibly complex this is.

And there's no one silver bullet that's going to fix everything.

Representative.

All goes down a political route on this.

And I think we've seen a lot of times have been a lot of big government programs.

And these great educational programs that go in and they're going to change the way people operate and the way they live.

And that all sounds great, but it typically doesn't produce the greatest of results.

But here's what one thing that will change the results of how kids learn to eat is what they see their mother and father or grandparents cooking at home.

And if we can introduce those practices into our homes, then that's going to leave a more lasting imprint.

That's going to be in the mapping of our kids, to be able to be able to change some of the systemic ways that we approach nutrition in a lot of our communities.

>> It's not political.

That's exactly what Snap-ed did.

They did it in the community, in their house.

They taught people how to use their benefits.

It was not a political.

It's exactly what that program.

>> So what was the rationale for eliminating it?

>> You'd have to talk to the president and the Congress that voted for it, the people who voted for it and against it.

>> Yeah.

Anyone else care to comment on that?

I would okay.

>> I think more important than this is to focus on the things that we can control here in Kentucky.

That's what we're here about tonight.

That's what we're focusing on.

And being able to introduce the the more healthier approaches to food.

And the food is medicine arena.

And being able to adjust these aren't revolutionary new concepts.

When I started to school 50 years ago, we learned about nutrition, trees and how many fruits and vegetables that we were supposed to consume on a daily basis.

But applying this in some of the things we're talking about is incredibly complex.

I had a meeting in Commissioner Schill's office to address how we were going to view some of this stuff a week or so ago, and we're talking about working through Medicaid waivers to changing the way that we do government contracting for for suppliers in our in our systems, for schools and hospitals.

These there are all these tentacles of these issues that run so deep.

And as legislators, legislators, those are some of the responsibilities that we're going to have if we're going to have to to make some real systemic changes, we're going to have to change the way we approach and really commit to to the food as medicine approach if we're going to see any real benefits.

>> So, Miss Feldman, what are what case are you making to Senator Howell on what they should be considering when they meet in January for the 2020 legislative.

>> Session for two hours?

>> Can you give us the Nut Graf version of top three, maybe?

>> Well, I didn't have the pleasure of being in that meeting the other day, but some some of the things that the senator mentioned, it's it's trying to find the reimbursement for the food, for food, whether it's food boxes, whether it's a food prescription.

We talk a lot about medically tailored meals to address acute, chronic needs.

We talk about maybe it's a grocery prescription or a voucher to go to the grocery store to use on healthy food, that that is one piece that is going to be very challenging to, to get through because we talked that no one's done it yet.

So it is hard.

I call it a project that we're just going to have to chip away at here and there to make it happen.

It is going to happen.

I do believe that.

But we need to have reimbursement.

Model is probably where it's going to be most sustainable.

>> And when you say reimbursement model for the layperson at home, it's like reimburse who and what and how much.

>> Well, well, those are some of the things that are going to have to be determined in terms of of the how much, but some, some programs in the country, I went to a food as medicine conference in DC about a year and a half ago, and it's coming through Medicaid and it's coming through those programs.

The reimbursements are those those programs already reimbursed for health care intervention intervention programs already.

It's and we do have to, unfortunately, prove time and time again that food is a health intervention, just like medicine would be.

But but that's that's one of the arms of, of one of the tentacles that we're, we're trying to tackle.

And of course, the Agriculture Department alone can't do that.

It's too multifaceted across many different divisions and departments within the state.

But that's one thing to look at.

Another thing that we are looking at, when I talked about having more local products into cafeterias and the health, the dietitians and what the dietitians choose and the cafeteria managers choose at the hospitals, it's probably looking at their distribution contracts.

And so we're talking maybe doing some intervention on some of the contracts with the large nationwide food distributors.

That's going to be challenging, too, because a lot of that food right now, the produce is coming from California.

It's not coming from Kentucky.

And it's how do we how do we make some changes to kind of turn that ship to say, you can get the strawberries year round in Kentucky right now, why are you always going to another state for those things?

So there are a lot of layers to the food as medicine puzzle, but they're going to come together.

It's just going to take some time and some elbow grease and some ingenuity to get there.

>> Well, I'd like to yeah.

>> I really think that our insurance partners there at the table.

So for 2026 we have partnerships with four of our Medicaid providers and they are open to testing.

What does it look like.

But it's a you know, it is a business.

And so we need to show them what are the health benefits and what's that return on investment.

And the one thing I'd love to see our legislators think about if this is the dollar price, what can we reimburse farmers for the incremental price on top of that basic cost?

So if a basic cost of a meal is $4.50, can we reimburse for an additional $1.50 for that farmer?

That means it's local food.

It comes back to the farmer, but it's health that goes back to that patient that's enrolled in the Food as medicine program.

So I think our commissioner shell, our secretary, cabinet, Health and Family Services doctor stack there, and our commissioner of Medicaid, that everyone wants these solutions.

I think it just takes a lot of time and layering to figure out what is that right rate and how do we help our farmers at the same time?

>> Sure.

Yeah.

Senator, go ahead.

>> For both of those comments.

Just a simple example.

The major distributors that Miss Feldman mentioned, they all work with suppliers to forward contract for, for food products.

But in Kentucky, we do not have a we're not set up to where under our model procurement code to where producers can forward contract with schools, with hospitals, with VA, that sort of thing.

On a micro level, to be able to do this and be able to to service our food locally.

So we have to go back in and change the way we do our procurement code to allow our local producers in the state to be able to forward contract so they can take advantage of the market and the way the market works in everything else.

All of our grain farmers, they live and die on forward contracting, but our squash farmers in Kentucky, that is a more emerging and more micro industry.

They haven't gotten there yet.

So we have a gap in here that we've got to address and be able to bridge.

>> And people would say, just change the procurement code.

What's the holdup.

>> On that?

>> So just change the procurement code.

That's one question with about 27.

>> Parts as we can tell.

>> And that's something that we're working through.

And quite candidly, I think that it's been on the forefront of a lot of people's mind for a long time.

But I think we have more of a perfect storm of people focused on this.

And quite honestly, being led by Commissioner Schill, who he and his staff are willing to sit down and grind through the minutia of going through some of this stuff and working with people in the legislature, such as myself, that are willing to sit and grind through some of this stuff and find out how to change the procurement code.

There's nothing sexy about going in and redoing.

>> Procurement codes, and how.

>> All of this goes into different things in the state, but it's the things that we're going to have to do if we're going to move forward in this issue with locally produced foods that come from Kentucky that are healthy.

>> Right.

Miss McDonald.

>> And I go to the education piece that's so crucial here because, you know, if we can start early and we can get these local foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, protein sources that we have grown here in our state into our school system.

You know, the farm to school model has been around for decades.

Amazing model.

But it's the procurement that's always been the hindrance or it's been the processing, because you have a lot of cafeteria staff that are smaller now than they were possibly back in the 80s and 90s.

They're not doing the scratch cooking.

They need more of those prepared opportunities.

For example, you have a farmer that has an amazing amount of corn and that wants to get that corn, local corn into the school.

Well, that means that there has to be somebody that can shuck the corn, can take the corn off the cob, and then to be able to help either flash freeze it so that it can be reheated.

So there's a lot of nuances.

>> For hundreds of kids.

>> Yes, for hundreds of kids.

So I have to give a big shout out to the Kentucky School Nutrition Association, who has done such an amazing job of making sure that try and find little kind of like those tentacles to make it work.

Representative all did a great job of trying to really push through a local food bill.

A couple of years ago.

Our Commissioner shell has been doing an amazing job.

All of this goes to because if we can make sure that our children with with school breakfast and school lunch being a critical piece to that child's day and making sure that they're getting the opportunities to have those fresh, local, healthy foods, then their longevity and their ability to thrive will be a much further trajectory than what it would be if it's not.

>> Right.

Even if those little square pizzas are good, they're not good for you, right?

>> Right.

You know, to be able to find an opportunity to be able to serve some additional product with that.

>> That's right.

Yeah.

So representative, all I want to go back to what Melissa was talking about.

What was the bill that you tried to put through and will you offer it up again next session.

>> Sorry about that.

>> No, I appreciate the opportunity.

It was so representative Senator Cassie Chambers Armstrong and I, we worked together with the Kentucky School Nutrition Association and the the Kentucky Superintendents Association, the Principals Association, teachers, just about everybody and put together a round table and came up with this idea that many of our schools are on the community eligibility program.

So if they have a number of children in their school that are eligible for free and reduced lunch, the school go ahead and they cover the additional cost to give free breakfast and lunch to all the children who are eating in that school that day.

And there were some other states, like Michigan and others who had bridged that divide and covered the that cost at the state level for those schools.

And so we came up with a different program where we were going to provide a reimbursement to that local school district who was already incurring that cost if they would go and purchase locally produced ag products.

It was a win for local farmers, win for the kids because they're going to have better, more nutritious food.

And it was going to help the schools reimburse them for an expense they already had.

>> What was the fiscal note on that?

>> The fiscal note was, depending on the the multiplier at the federal level, which is always kind of in play.

And then how many schools at that exact.

>> Sounds worse than procurement.

>> Yeah.

>> That exact year.

>> Where taking part in the community eligibility program, because that number varies a little bit every year.

But it was about an 8 to $12 million fiscal note.

And lots of conversations.

Lots of sponsors just could not get it quite across the finish line.

I've been talking to some of my majority party colleagues across the aisle to see if they want to take that ball and run with it.

I've talked to several of them on the ag committee about that bill, and I, and I've talked to Commissioner Shell, and I know he's trying to see how he can, in an innovative way, kind of roll that into the Food is Medicine program.

We actually had a hearing in Frankfort last week in agriculture where we talked about this, this very subject, because our kids, at the end of the day, if we can get local Kentucky produced ag products and the school district on their plate, it's a win for everybody involved.

And so that's what we're focused on.

>> And is there enough of that supply to do that for every kid in Kentucky?

>> Well, I think there's enough to do the start.

It may not be enough to be a 100% replacement, but if we're talking about five, ten, 15%, yes, for certain things, you know, we produce honey, you know, we to your point, strawberries and a lot of the butternut squash.

I was down at a. West six the on Saturday and we were doing a food drive.

And they had hundreds of thousands of butternut squash that we were washing and peeling and getting ready.

And so there are certain produce that we can provide here locally.

We're not going to have it all, but we're not talking about it all because we can't probably afford the entire fiscal impact of doing a 100% replacement.

But on the margin, yeah, we can do that.

>> Right.

And to to Melissa's point about having the staff in the school who can do all of these things, whether it's shucking corn and all of that.

I mean, that takes some manpower in the schools.

So the delivery and the delivery, right?

Yeah.

You want to pick up on that?

>> Well, I would say that in the food is medicine space.

And the school procurement Department of Agriculture is also working on a large school procurement project as well.

It is to to get a start, just as the representative explained.

But choose Kentucky first.

How do we make it?

So you choose Kentucky first and then fill in with whatever else that you need.

We are not going to be able to supply hospitals and schools tomorrow.

There are two of the largest institutions in the state that buy food in almost every county, every city.

But how do we start to turn the tide to say, I'm going to choose Kentucky first, and then go and find out what else I need?

And to also talk about Senator's Point on the forward contracting.

I was invited to go to Needmore Acres Farm last week for a summit that Michelle and Nathan Hale had, and their farmers.

They farm about seven acres, I think.

And Nathan Hale said, if I know that it's coming, I'll plant it, but I can't plant it and not know where it's going.

I have to know.

So changing that model to do more of that forward contracting is one of those keys.

Getting more on farm processing and more processors in the state is key, because if you can send the corn to the school and it's already ready, you have taken out a lot of the the problem of trying to make sure you're using that product.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Go ahead.

Yeah.

>> A couple of things.

>> First of all, with butternut squash dice tossed with a little pepper and brown sugar and roasted for about 30 minutes.

That's the better way of doing this.

We don't need the recipe for that.

But in all seriousness, to represent Duvall's point and what Miss Feldman was talking about, we don't have to get to 100%.

We're not.

We may not get to 100% of production in schools and hospitals with Kentucky proud products in my lifetime.

Right now, we're where we are right now.

We can't service that.

We can't purchase some of the some of the products that we have now year long in a school year.

The way we're set up and structured, this is going to be a really long process with a long runway, and I think it's important for us to do to take whatever steps we can to make sure the minimum in the kind of the critical mass that we seem to have on this issue right now, to be able to sustain that until we can get to 10 or 15%, 15% was a number that represented of all used.

And I think that would make a huge difference in what we're talking about.

And there's a line in there somewhere where the market consolidates from both supply and demand, and then you can move forward with big gaps and big jumps into production.

>> Mr.

Halligan yeah.

>> So just the whole notion of contracting for acreage, right.

So we talked earlier about reinforcement value, whatever the number is, if we know what a reimbursement value is for a type of food produce, and we're working with some 200 farmers today through feeding Kentucky.

Now, not only can we access seconds that might not sell, but we can work with every single one of those farmers to say, let's carve out an acre for this and or an acre for that.

We know the demand is there from a food insecurity standpoint.

Right?

We talked earlier about food insecurity and the awareness of food insecurity probably being higher than it's ever been.

And in the 45 minutes that we've been sitting here talking, just think about all the amazing ideas that we've bantered back and forth around.

We set aside some funding with one of the managed care organizations, or through some kind of reimbursement, and we pilot contracting for acreage to plant crop.

We have an outlet where it can go.

It's called a hungry, you know, someone who's experiencing hunger.

And I think we've got an opportunity to test some things right now.

So my encouragement would be, let's find some funding.

Let's test it.

Let's prove the concept and let's go.

>> Well.

>> Because we know there are 750,000 people across the Commonwealth of Kentucky who were experiencing hunger before the shutdown.

That number is probably higher today.

And we know that nutrition is going to make a difference.

>> It seems like maybe some logical partners start with who you're already working with, miss Feldman.

Right.

Kentucky Association of Health Plans, Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation and insurance.

I mean, these are the stakeholders.

>> Yes.

These are the stakeholders.

We talked about Kentucky Hospital Association as well, and it's not going to be done by just one agency and just one department.

It's not going to be done in a vacuum.

We are as the Department of Agriculture, we are ready to work with anybody who wants to push this forward.

It's going to take all of us to come together.

Some of us in this room have been working together for a number of years on some of these challenges.

Yes.

And I think, I think we I think you have it solved on, on what the pilot needs to be.

Yeah, but but it's going to take everyone to come together.

And like you mentioned, the critical mass is here.

We need to take advantage of that.

>> Yeah.

Are you a Bill drafter too, Mr.

Halligan?

Because you can work with.

>> The legislators.

>> I'm a farm boy from Iowa and I'm a supply chain guy.

So it's like it's in the ground.

It needs to be to somebody's fork.

Let's figure out how to go from farm to fork as fast as we can.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> And like yesterday.

Right.

Because the demand is going to be ever increasing.

Right.

What do you think about all this?

I mean, you're hearing all these ideas and you've been you all talk about this stuff all the time.

>> You do talk about it all the time.

I think all these ideas are fantastic.

I think in the long term, having a variety of sources that fund food insecurity, work and health care is vital.

So when we have insurance covering a certain part of that, when we have federal government SNAP covering another part of that, we need a I call it a suite of options in order to address food insecurity in those health outcomes.

So I think that's one model that our state is really good at, right?

We're really good at bringing in together because we're small and we all know each other.

We play in the sandbox pretty nicely.

And so we have those different partners coming, you know, coming together to address that.

I think what's important to remember is that when we do address food insecurity, we see a change in health outcomes.

We see a reduction in blood pressure.

We see a reduction in hemoglobin A1-c blood glucose.

We see way better health outcomes for high risk pregnant moms and then for babies.

>> But are those who are food insecure?

Do they consistently have a medical home and visit a medical doctor on a regular basis to get all of those stats?

>> Yes.

You know what is surprising to me, Renee?

When we offer high patient touch.

So we have referral coordinators that we do biweekly check ins.

And so we have a program right now with U of L. And so it's a caregiver and up to two children.

And we call every week.

And we say how is the food program going.

Do you like it.

Do you have questions about how to cook.

Do you have questions about what you're allowed to buy.

So one mom wanted to buy fried chicken.

You're not allowed to.

Nope, nope.

Because this is food is medicine.

This isn't just food for the sake of food.

This is food as medicine.

You are not buying fried chicken, right?

And so once she got through that, she then sent us her grocery receipt and said, my kids picked all this out and it was all fruits, vegetables, lean protein, low fat dairy, exactly what we want.

>> And did they eat it?

>> Yes.

And then on top of it, they came back to their doctor because it's high patient touch.

We need to meet people where they are and engage with them and they respond.

They want good things for themselves and their kids.

>> Yeah.

>> They want good things for themselves and their kids.

Yeah, they want it.

>> Maybe the the default thinking is that they'll just take whatever they can get, and it doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

And that's.

>> And I disagree.

Yeah, it does matter.

And we don't want to throw junk in people's faces.

We want good healthy local food in at their homes.

And we see amazing health outcomes when we do that.

>> Well.

The Make America Healthy Again Task Force Kentucky Task force has talked about some of this, right about, you know, when we talk about some of the changes in assistance and being able to, you know, use your dollars for more healthy options, right.

This is part of some of that conversation.

>> Yeah.

It is.

I'm not on that task force.

But we've had people come testify and read some of their press releases.

You know, this is this is something we were doing beforehand.

It's something we're doing afterwards.

I don't think it matters where it's coming from.

As long as the message is being delivered to the end user on how to use their funding for better health outcomes.

And I think at the end of the day, we, you know, hunger is not a it's not a political issue.

It's it's a people issue.

And how are we going to work together to make things better?

>> Yeah.

Doctor Gustafson, I remember many years ago in Louisville, they were addressing food deserts and not having a local grocery store.

So they partnered with convenience stores to actually have produce.

And you know what happened there?

The produce rotted.

Yes.

Right.

So help us, like help us help.

Why understand why that happened?

>> Yeah.

No problem.

So it's because you are not engaging and they're not part of the decision making.

So if I come into your house and I say I've made you this kale soup and you didn't ask for kale soup, are you going to eat my kale soup?

You are not going to eat my kale soup.

And so we have seen over time and again, when you are not engaging the patient, the member, the customer, that end user in the decision making process, and we just throw random food at them, you are not eating it, you are not cooking it.

You are.

You are not giving it to your children.

And so this our program offers that suite of options.

Sometimes people do better with a meal kit, you know, from a locally grown farmer.

Some people just do better going to the grocery store and the farmer's market.

And so we need to have options.

And so I think that food is medicine platform.

We can allow those options.

So we have amazing medically tailored meal providers in our state who are using local food.

FoodChain Kings kitchen they're sourcing from local farmers.

Is the whole meal local?

No, because it can't be, but is a good percentage of it?

Yes it is.

So again, we do not want to come in as we're going to tell people what to do.

We want to invite them to the table, offer a suite of options, but within that, no, it isn't going to be back to my fried chicken.

It is not going to be French fries.

Your suite of options is still around the healthy palette, right?

>> Right.

Let's talk real quickly as we as we go out.

Melissa, about if you could suggest policy to lawmakers about food insecurity, what's one idea that you hope that these two gentlemen on the ends would help push along.

>> I coming from a background of working in schools and specifically working with child nutrition, I think if we can really focus on our schools and ensuring that healthy foods that we have security of breakfast and lunch and making sure that we take care and have the community eligibility provision programing, because we know that food insecurity is, you know, across the board.

And if families are being hit hard now, they've been hit hard for years.

And I always say that any time you have a food insecure mother, there are children right behind her and making sure that if they can at least get breakfast and lunch, even a dinner program through the Cakephp program or the kids cafe funding that.

Cakephp child adult feeding program.

Thank you that even that our food banks are able to provide or our summer feeding opportunities that.

>> Many of.

>> You mentioned about school.

But when they're not in school, what's the option?

>> The other great thing.

So if we can make sure that we have policies that keep the summer feeding program alive, that ensure that food banks can be able to do food pantries, can do feeding sites, along with schools, libraries.

Stepped in to this this summer.

We had the most feeding programs than most of the states of the country.

It was amazing how many feeding programs we've had across our state to be able to ensure that kids have an opportunity to eat 365 days a year, because if we can start out early and we can make sure that we're getting them fed, then it can really lead to some wonderful outcomes.

Yeah, that would be probably where I would start.

And then ensuring that we have federally ensuring that we have support for our emergency, the Tefap funding, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is crucial for our our food banks to be able to keep their their shelves stocked.

>> Yeah.

Mr.

Halligan, you've already given us some ideas to chew on.

You got another?

>> So the.

We do not solve hunger without a robust public private partnership.

And whatever we can do to stretch donated dollars, government dollars, purchase product dollars so that we are accessing more food and distributing that food for the same dollar.

It just makes us all more efficient.

Right?

So my encouragement is for all of us to think creatively about how to make $1, two and two four, because that turns into more nutritious food.

So a lot of the things that Melissa just talked about are a big part of it.

The notion of doing some kind of a pilot with a reimbursement program, it's all about the efficiencies of scale and those donated dollars and those governmental dollars and those private dollars being cost effective.

>> Yeah.

>> Dana, would you like to give us some parting words about what you would recommend?

You're already working on a lot, but.

>> We are working on a lot.

Thank you.

I think you will see that we'll have some resolutions and maybe some legislation around school procurement and around food as medicine, just kind of start to lay the groundwork and make making it easier to choose Kentucky first.

Yeah.

And it might be changing the procurement code as well.

>> So I think that's going to be job number one.

Right.

Which is you get that done on day one.

You, Senator, Mr.

Chairman, you can take care of that.

Get that through the first five days of words.

Last words from you.

>> Yeah.

I think it's something that we need to keep in mind is that we have a lot of good ideas.

But in government, in the federal level and state level, both has have made a history out of throwing money at good ideas and not getting good results.

And we have to dig down into the infrastructure and all of the supply chains.

I think Doctor Gustafson brought up a good point about getting people to buy in to making part of their decision and involving the people that are consuming the food into the decisions.

In order to change outlook, we have to be able to do that up and down our supply chain and the local level too.

We're starting to go down that road better.

In the last couple of years in the legislature, we've allocated some funding for rural agricultural economic development.

I sponsored a bill to to put some framework around that in this past session, so we can go in and build out our processing group, the great sweet corn that you referenced earlier is not going to be shucked and cooked in a in a school cafeteria.

It's going to be done in a processing place somewhere, and it's going to arrive on pallets, refrigerated pallets in the schools.

And we have to build out that part of our infrastructure if we're going to take this down the road.

>> Yeah.

>> You got 10s worth of thought there.

>> Hunger is not red.

Hunger is not blue.

It affects everybody equally.

And we need to put down our party labels and do what we can collectively, together as a commonwealth, to feed every one of our neighbors.

>> All right.

We'll have to leave it there.

We thank you all.

This has been a very good discussion, animated and informative, and I appreciate it.

And if we've been a part of the conversation that happens in Frankfort, well, that's all the better to well, we're off next Monday for Ken Burns American Revolution documentary series.

You do not want to be want to miss that at all.

And be sure to join us each weeknight at 630 eastern, 530 central for Kentucky edition, because we're going to break down a lot of these issues that we talked about tonight.

And then join Bill Bryant and a team of working journalists to discuss the news of the week on Comment on Kentucky Friday at eight eastern, seven central, right here on KET.

Thanks so much for being with us.

When we come back in two weeks, we'll talk about Eastern Kentucky tourism.

So that will be a discussion that you don't want to miss.

Then.

That's in two weeks on November 24th.

I'm Renee Shaw until I see you again.

Take really good care and be safe out there tonight if you're going to be out so long.