Question

 

Agriculture has always influenced Citizen Potawatomi Nation member Jeremy Bennett’s life. From being active in his local FFA chapter as a kid to assisting with the 2014 Farm Bill’s language as a young adult, he enjoys being involved with the industry.

“My upbringing, my roots and my passion is agriculture,” Bennett said.

“I have always been very interested in this field — my background is in Native American agriculture and environmental policy issues because both of them correlate to each other.”

For his master’s degree at Oklahoma State University, he focused on environmental policy and Native American health issues, linking both back to food concerns.

“I heard a lot about food deserts, and I wondered how it impacts minorities, and in particular, how it impacts Native Americans,” he said. “I started looking, and there is a lot more literature and research on food deserts in the ‘traditional reservations’ versus Oklahoma’s.”

This prompted Bennett to ask himself, “What kind of food scarcity or food insecurity do Oklahoma tribes have?’” After receiving his undergraduate degree in 2011, he began his charge to capture this much-needed data within CPN’s original jurisdiction.

He used the Department of Agriculture’s food insecurity questionnaire and developed supplemental questions to determine whether certain triggers influence food access.

“The study provided valuable information regarding the impacts of various national issues such as health, education, employment status and financial well-being within the Tribe,” he said.

Food security classifications for his study include without hunger, with hunger, moderate hunger and severe hunger.

His research indicated in 2013, around 30 percent of adults and 10 percent of children in Citizen Potawatomi Nation households were food insecure.

“There are different degrees and levels of food insecurity, but among households that were surveyed in CPN’s territory, over 35 percent of CPN households were considered food insecure to some degree,” he said. “This is higher than the national level of nearly 15 percent for all U.S. households.

“At that time, it was also higher than the national level of 23 percent for American Indians and Alaska Natives,” Bennett said. “Approximately 11 percent of those surveyed had food insecurity with hunger present.

“When examining various household characteristics among different food security statuses, obvious differences were observed,” he said. “It was no surprise that the food insecure households did not consist of any household that had earned a college degree or higher and had a household income level of $75,000 or greater.

Answer 1

 

Agriculture had a great impact on life of Jeremy Bennett who is a member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Bennett enjoys being involved in an agriculture industry as his passion is in agriculture. Moreover he is interested in this field of agriculture as his background is in Native American Agriculture which he is able to correlate with environment policy issues. During his master's degree from Oklahoma State University, his center of attention was on environment policy and native american health issues. He linked his focus regarding food concerns and effect of food deserts on Native Americans. He started doing research and asked himself a question that what ind of food insecurity do tribes of Oklahoma face? He used the questionnaire of Department of agriculture's food insecurity and made different types of questions to know how can the access to food be increased. He classified his research on tribes which included without hunger,with hunger ,moderate hunger and severe hunger. Moreover he also came to know about impact of national issues like health , education, employment status and financial well-being on tribal people.

His research showed that in 2013, approximately 30% of adults and 10% of children in Citizen Potawatomi Nation (CPN) households were insecure. The households which were surveyed in CPN's territory , showed that around 35% of households were food insecure to some degree. Which is higher than national level of 15% for all U.S households. The food insecurity in CPN territory was even higher than national level of 23% for American Indians and Alaska Natives. While his research in households characteristics , he observed differences among food security statuses. Surprisingly , the food insecure households did not consist of households who had income level of $75,000 or greater or had earned a college degree.