SDSU Extension Launches Produce Prescription Program Dakota Food Rx

Apr 30, 2024

SDSU Extension is launching Dakota Food Rx, a produce prescription program in Sturgis and Spearfish.

Dakota Food Rx, supported by the South Dakota Community Foundation, allows qualifying patients to receive “prescriptions” from participating health care providers. Not technical prescriptions, they can be redeemed for boxes of fresh, locally grown produce from farms participating in community-supported agriculture shares.

SDSU Extension is recruiting South Dakota produce growers who sell via community-supported agriculture, farmers’ markets or other direct market channels for 2025.

Patients, growers and health care providers across South Dakota interested in participating in the Dakota Food Rx program in 2025 can fill out a form at the Dakota Food Rx page.

Geb Bastian, assistant professor and SDSU Extension Nutrition and Health Specialist, said produce prescription programs have been implemented all over the U.S. to improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Dakota Food Rx is unique because of its focus on providing local produce.

“I’m excited about Dakota Food Rx because it will allow patients struggling with food insecurity to receive fresh, locally grown produce that can help manage diet-related chronic conditions,” Bastian said. “Eating healthy is so expensive now. This program lets folks afford fresh, healthy food while also supporting our local growers.”

About 1 in 5 deaths in the U.S. and around the world are caused by diseases that can be linked to poor diets, including heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers, like breast and colorectal cancer. Many people cannot access or afford healthful foods, like fruits and vegetables, to help manage or prevent such diseases.

Roughly 73,000 South Dakotans are considered food insecure, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life.” Food insecurity can impact people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and income levels.

Source : sdstate.edu

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.