PORTLAND (AP) — The Oregon Food Bank says requests for emergency food are rising sharply.

Statewide, the Oregon network of food banks distributed 13 percent more emergency food boxes in the most recent quarter, which ended Sept. 30, than during the same time the year before.

Since then, the global financial downturn has gotten worse, and Oregon has seen a spike in unemployment, with the jobless rate rising nearly a percentage point.

The executive director and CEO of the Oregon Food Bank, Rachel Bristol, says nine of the network’s regional food banks report giving out record numbers of food boxes in the quarter. She says there is “a staggering need for emergency food.”

Large increases, of 40 percent or more, were recorded at regional food banks in the far northwest corner of the state and on the far eastern border.

Even before economic conditions turned bleak, the Food Bank says, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showed Oregon had jumped from number 19 in 2002-04 to 15 in 2005-07 among states in the category of people living with food insecurity and from 18th to third in numbers of residents living with “very low food security.”

In the two-year period, nearly half a million Oregonians struggled to afford food or skipped meals and otherwise curtailed eating because they couldn’t afford food, the group said.

An Oregon Food Bank report says the state had expanded the food stamp program, increased emergency food supplies and increased outreach to shed its ranking as No. 1 in hunger in the nation in 2000.

In a statement on the food bank’s Web site, Bristol said the first-quarter numbers underscore “the impact of the harsh economic realities our neighbors in need are facing today.”

“Layoffs, foreclosures and other economic disruptions are taking a terrible toll on our neighbors,” she said.

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On the Net:

http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/