Hoosiers Gather to Seek Solution to Hunger in State
Published: Friday, September 11, 2026
Fill in the blank: A food secure Indiana becomes possible when _____? This was the question at the Indiana Hunger Summit last week in three locations across Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville.
Today, approximately 15% (1.03 million) Hoosiers struggle with food insecurity. Farmer involvement, transportation and distribution systems, and preserving dignity were among the solutions discussed during the summit.
Denise Jamerson of Legacy Taste of the Garden in Lyles Station, Ind. led a discussion about uniting agriculture, businesses and communities to address hunger. Panelists included Nancy Hintz of the Million Meal Movement, Lisa Vaughan of Feed Evansville, Sam Schwoeppe of Industry Partners for Fresh Connect Central and Virgil Bremer, a Rush County farmer.
"Food security is not created by one organization or by one sector. It grows through relationships between people who produce the food, people who move the food and the communities it is intended to nourish," Jamerson said. "Today we will explore one central question: What becomes possible when everyone who grows, produces, processes, transports, funds, volunteers and distributes food sees hunger as part of their responsibility?"
The biggest challenges to this are distribution and transportation, the speakers said.
"When you are blessed with abundance, you want to share," Schwoeppe said.
However, sometimes there is an imbalance of food available in a regional food bank, with some products coming in overabundance, and others remaining scarce in a season.
Bremer agreed and said there are times when there is an overabundance of a product in one region of the state, a depravity in another region and no way to get the products to the area in need.
Bremer and Schwoeppe presented two solutions to address this: building reliable food transportation and connections and understanding the needs at area food assistance facilities.
"Growing relationships between ISDA (Indiana State Department of Agriculture) and food banks is key to building resiliency, Schwoeppe said.
Bremer said when he first got involved in donating meat from his cattle to area food resource centers, he offered to cut steaks to give some high-end protein options. However, the food pantries were not interested.
"'Let's find products that the clients and neighbors want, with being able to stretch a meal, take a pound of the protein and then pair it with a sauce and a noodle, and you can create more quantity of food,'" he said, quoting the reply of those he had reached out to about donating meats.
In response, Bremer loaded up some feeder calves and provided 400 pounds of ground beef to the area food banks. He added that with the requests for ground beef, he could use animals that had some lower quality growth to provide nutritious meat.
Vaughan encourages Hoosiers to volunteer at food banks, pantries and other organizations addressing hunger in Indiana. She said by simply volunteering, Hoosiers transition from a mere awareness of a food security issue to an understanding of the needs and actionable work toward a solution.
Schwoeppe said those who visit food pantries want to have the same food options as grocery stores. This can be different across the various regions. Farmers can help with this by learning what products are needed in the area and committing a small percentage of their acreage to producing those. However, Bremer added that this creates another need: training for farmers in the markets, risk mitigations and management of those types of products needed.
"We need to learn how to grow those crops well," he said.
Fear and shame are preventing Hoosiers from accepting the help they need to get the nutrition they need. That's according to Heidi Spahn, global community investment leader and foundation president for Corteva.
Joe Klemeczewski, resource development officer at Tri-State Food Bank in Evansville led off the morning with a keynote describing the current conditions and challenges of food security in Indiana and across the U.S.
Klemeczewski said that after a temporary cut to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistant Plan (SNAP) in 2025, the traffic to Tri-State Food Bank increased by 27%, a trend that was echoed throughout the U.S. The current farm bill draft could make a permanent cut to SNAP, resulting in a loss of $187 million in assistance. He argued that, if realized, this would result in higher costs associated with medical care due to nutritional deficiencies and urged attendees to contend for SNAP to address needs before they turn into medical emergencies.
He said Hoosiers all share that bill, whether in SNAP or hospital payments.
"If we simply resource the front end to help our neighbors eat with dignity, it saves money and lives," he said.
In a fireside chat following his keynote, Klemeczewski, Shellye Suttles and Spahn discussed the shifts in food needs across Indiana. Hunger is on the rise in both urban and rural parts of the state, but it is often hidden, they said.
"An urban community sees issues of fear, and a rural community sees issues of shame," Suttles said.
There are farmers in need of food assistance across Indiana, but to admit the need and accept federal assistance often seems impossible, she continued. This is due to the largely rural pushback against SNAP funding in favor of more agricultural funding.
In the urban areas, many are reluctant to accept SNAP funding due to fear of immigration policies and changes in assistance access.
As hunger in Indiana is on the rise, Suttles and Klemeczewski said it is important to provide dignity to those in need. By giving dignity, Klemeczewski said Hoosiers are more likely to accept assistance early, ultimately shortening the amount of time they are reliant on that assistance.
Speakers at the Indiana Hunger Summit encourage Hoosiers to approach the topic of hunger with a neighbor in mind, and to consider that no one is far from hunger; in fact, many are only one disaster event away from food insecurity.
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