LSP Receives Blue Cross Support to Promote Healthy Eating in West Central MN

CONTACT: Terry VanDerPol, Land Stewardship Project, 320-269-2105;
Karen Lyons Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, 651-662-1415

3/20/09
MONTEVIDEO, MN — The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is receiving funding from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s (Blue Cross) tobacco settlement proceeds to promote healthier eating and thereby help to improve the health of Minnesotans.

LSP was chosen to receive the funding to work with local groups and citizens in west central Minnesota who have limited access to a green grocer. This initiative will explore how local farmers, gardeners and community gardening projects can help people improve the community’s access to good food, including high quality fruits and vegetables.

The project will include working with University of Minnesota Extension, the University of Minnesota’s West Central Sustainable Development Partnership, and the Crossroads Resource Center to help area residents assess the strengths and challenges of access to good food in their communities. LSP’s staff in Montevideo will partner with communities to plan how access to good food can be improved through a variety of methods including community gardening, improving produce preservation skills, and building markets and venues for locally produced food.

“Research is clear that lack of access to good food has a negative impact on nutrition. It’s paradoxical that this is a problem in the middle of one of the richest agricultural regions in the world,” said Terry VanDerPol, Director of LSP’s Community Based Food Systems and Economic Development Program. “We believe this can be a win-win situation — improving access to good nutrition in sparsely populated areas can also improve local markets for area farmers.”

LSP is one of eight local organizations receiving the funding from Blue Cross through its Prevention Minnesota Community Funding initiative, “Healthy Eating Minnesota.” The contracts are one element of a comprehensive effort to more than double the number of Minnesotans who eat five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Funded groups will work to improve access to and affordability of healthy foods, especially fruits and vegetables.

Research shows eating more fruits and vegetables can help protect against heart disease and some cancers, help manage diabetes and weight, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduce the likelihood of heart attack or stroke. The valuable health benefits result in reduced illness and health care costs related to a poor diet.

“Unhealthy eating and physical inactivity combined are the second leading cause of preventable death and disease in our state, and today 80 percent of Minnesotans put their health at risk because they aren’t eating a healthy diet,” said Marc Manley, M.D., vice president and medical director of population health at Blue Cross. “That’s a big problem that requires enlisting help from many groups around the state to remove barriers and change systems, so that eating healthy foods can be the easy choice. We look forward to working with local organizations such as the Land Stewardship Project and together, I’m confident we can make real progress.”

Contingent upon successful negotiation of its contract, LSP will begin its work in early 2009. The initiative’s experiences and successes will be shared with other communities across the state.

Blue Cross expects to invest approximately $650,000 from its tobacco settlement proceeds to fund these eight groups’ healthy eating work next year. For more information about “Healthy Eating Minnesota” and a complete list of selected groups, visit www.bluecrossmn.com/preventionminnesota.

LSP, with offices in western Minnesota, southeast Minnesota and South Minneapolis, is a private nonprofit with over 2,400 members. LSP has worked for over 25 years for vibrant rural communities, a land stewardship ethic and economic justice for family farmers. LSP currently has three program areas: Farm Beginnings, Community Based Food Systems and Economic Development, and Policy and Organizing. Go to www.landstewardshipproject.org for more information.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, with headquarters in the Saint Paul suburb of Eagan, was chartered in 1933 as Minnesota’s first health plan and continues to carry out its charter mission today: to promote wider, more economical and timely availability of health services for the people of Minnesota. A nonprofit, taxable organization, Blue Cross is the largest health plan based in Minnesota, covering 2.9 million members in Minnesota and nationally through its health plans or plans administered by its affiliated companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, headquartered in Chicago. Go to www.bluecrossmn.com to learn more about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

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NOTE: Click here to read a letter inviting west central Minnesota groups to participate in the new healthy eating/local food initiative.