Indiana pork farmers help feed hungry neighbors

INDIANAPOLIS — For years, Indiana farmers have donated pork to meals banks and native feeding applications all through their state.

However in the case of realizing how a lot precisely they’ve donated, that’s a troublesome quantity to determine.

“We don’t have any thought of how a lot is donated,” mentioned Jeanette Merritt, director of communications and checkoff applications for Indiana Pork.

Merritt mentioned that many farmers select to quietly donate to their native meals pantry or feeding program.

“We’ve got farmers who’re having pigs processed after which they donate that pork to their native meals pantry. We’ve got county festivals across the state the place the consumers of an animal will donate it to the native meals pantry,” she mentioned.

On the Miami County 4-H Honest in July, purchasers of champion livestock donated 24 pigs and one steer to the Macy meals pantry and to Miami County Serving to Palms, a neighborhood meals pantry in Peru.

“These forms of donations go on not simply in Miami County, however in loads of counties,” Merritt mentioned.

The donations additionally go on all year long, with some farmers selecting to donate hams at Christmas.

Merritt mentioned that she learns about lots of the donations when meals pantries name to say thanks. She then tracks down the donation and the farmer to make a document of it and share the constructive information.

The farmers themselves not often name to take credit score for his or her donations.

“Throughout the ag neighborhood, the very last thing they do is elevate their hand and say, ‘Let me let you know what I did.’ They’re a really humble, humble bunch. They simply do it,” Merritt mentioned.

Merritt mentioned she expects that donations from farmers to their native feeding applications have elevated because the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Since COVID, they’ve seen their neighbors standing in a meals pantry line. Their communities have been hit laborious, and individuals who have by no means earlier than struggled to place meals on the desk, rapidly, they’ll’t feed their households due to what they have been going by means of for a few years,” she mentioned.

“I actually assume the ag neighborhood and our pork farmers across the state have stepped as much as attempt to fill the hole and feed their neighbors the place they’ll.”

In 2005, Indiana Pork, together with Feeding Indiana’s Hungry and the Indiana Soybean Alliance, began the Million Meals Program.

The objective of the marketing campaign is straightforward — and lofty: Present a million meals a yr to Indiana’s hungry.

Donations to the Million Meals Program are likely to take the type of money, so meals banks should purchase pork, Merritt mentioned.

“Indiana Pork donates cash to this system. We’ve got loads of farmers and corporations who donate cash, as properly. Then Feeding Indiana’s Hungry can purchase floor pork and provide it to the 11 Indiana meals banks,” Merritt mentioned.

The cash donations from Indiana Pork are stipulated for the acquisition of floor pork.

“They’ve bought pork in two-pound packages. We are saying a pound of pork will feed 4 individuals, in order that shall be eight meals in that one bundle of floor pork,” Merritt mentioned.

It’s not simply pork that Indiana Pork is including to native meals pantry cabinets. Many smaller pantries might lack satisfactory freezer house to retailer bigger portions of frozen floor pork for any size of time, so Indiana Pork launched a program in 2019 to assist on the storage aspect.

“We labored to assist provide freezers to some meals pantries across the state. We labored on a grant program to get them some storage. They have been getting the protein, however they wanted a technique to retailer it so they may get it out to their purchasers,” Merritt mentioned.

Merritt mentioned that the donations of floor pork to the 11 regional Feeding Indiana’s Hungry meals banks has needed to embrace a aspect of training.

“It’s a little little bit of a studying curve for a few of them and we ask them to inform their purchasers that floor pork substitutes for different floor protein,” Merritt mentioned.