Food insecurity impacts our state and our future in much bigger ways than most Iowans realize, said food-relief advocates at the 2018 Iowa Hunger Summit this fall in Des Moines.

Even though Iowa currently boasts one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, about 10 percent of the state’s population struggles with food insecurity and reliable access to nutritious foods, said Regenea Hurte, executive director of the Iowa Food Bank Association.

“So it’s not as easy as saying get a job,” Hurte said. “There are other barriers and issues that we need to address in order to come up with a real and ...