If I told you that you would learn from, and even enjoy reading a foundation’s Centennial Report, you might not believe me. However, that’s exactly what I’m telling you about “Closer to Home: Healthier Food, Farms & Families in Oklahoma,” produced by the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture. The family of Oklahoma’s first native-born governor, Robert S. Kerr, founded the center to improve the lives of Oklahomans. The book is full of well-researched facts about Oklahoma and its many communities. First person stories make the facts come alive, narrated by people who make up those communities; farmers/ranchers, food processors, educators, families, non-profits, business owners and employees — in short, all of us. We all eat and we all want the best value for our food dollar. We also want good nutrition and most of us want our dollars to support the people that actually produce our food. Right now, we aren't always getting that. In fact, we have an increasingly centralized food system that actually contributes to poverty and ill health as well as leaving us vulnerable to terrorism and diseases such as “Mad Cow” and “e-coli.” We can do better. This book vividly portrays Oklahoma’s food system — “from field to fork” (p. v) the way it is and the way it could be.

The report presents a series of “snapshots” of the food system in Oklahoma as a state and 12 representative counties. These facts appear alongside articles by and about “agents of change,” everyday people that are part of the solutions to the problems portrayed in the snapshots. The foods we raise here and the food that we could raise here will surprise you. Some statistics will shock you — such as the fact that in 2004, Oklahoma was “first among the states in the percentage of households with people who are hungry.” (p. i) You’ll be appalled by how expensive it is to import most of our food thousands of miles, while it loses its nutritional value and taste (often “preserved” by added chemicals of dubious safety and nutritional value).

You may think good, wholesome food has to be expensive, suited only to “tree hugging elitists” who can afford to shop in Natural Food Stores. However, we can buy, cook and eat our food in ways that are both good for our bodies and our wallets. We can reduce both obvious costs (production, preservation and transportation) and hidden ones (medical bills). Exciting strategies for poor people to eat healthier for less money are achievable. This book shows that good decision making can actually lower the incidence of Oklahoma’s killers: diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer. These decisions can affect levels of poverty among those that buy food and those that produce it.

“Today, for every dollar that a customer pays in a restaurant or grocery store, the farmer gets 19 cents. According to one estimate, if local sales took just 5 percent of Oklahoma’s food spending, the farmer’s share of that ‘food dollar’ would increase to 30 cents.” (p. 118)

Through the facts and stories in this remarkable report, you can learn the hard truths of present day Oklahoma and the heartening promise of a future so many citizens are working hard to create. Even better, it shows how you can be a part of helping to bring that future about, even as you improve your life and the lives of your loved ones right now.