Covid-19
While Congress fiddles, a critical tool to address child hunger is about to expire
A critical tool for fighting child hunger is set to expire at the end of the month, despite persistent need among millions of children due to the pandemic. The Pandemic-EBT program was created in March to give families funds to buy groceries in lieu of free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches their children would otherwise have been getting at school. Unless Congress renews the program before Sept. 30, eligible families will lose access to the benefit until at least after the presidential election. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
The largest U.S. student farm organization faces a reckoning on race
A racist incident involving a leader of the 700,000-member FFA spurred a backlash and revealed a long history of inequity at the student farm organization, says FERN's latest story by staff writer and associate editor Leah Douglas. (No paywall)
Federal funding barrier: Billions more for farmers
One-year extension of hemp pilot is on congressional agenda
Climate change, migration, and the future of pandemics
In the late 18th century, a French zoologist visiting South Africa documented a deadly local livestock disease known as bluetongue. Today, some 240 years later, the disease can be found virtually worldwide. In FERN's latest story, produced with Ensia, Carson Vaughan explores a new way of understanding emerging infectious diseases, showing how climate change and migration can cause pathogens to spread in new and virulent ways. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
Coronavirus requires a ‘massive response,’ Pelosi tells the NFU
Six months into the pandemic, America needs a "massive response" to the coronavirus to keep the economy running, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday speaking to the National Farmers Union. "You can't have a skinny deal," said Pelosi, urging NFU members to tell lawmakers to pass comprehensive legislation.
Feds investigating after H-2A worker died of Covid-19 complications at a Texas potato plant
Marco Antonio Galvan Gomez, a 48-year-old husband and father from Guanajuato, Mexico, had worked eight years on a seasonal visa at Larsen Farms, one of the biggest potato producers in the nation, when he died of complications related to Covid-19 on July 20. He had spent the previous 12 days struggling to keep working despite suffering from fever, aches and shortness of breath; Larsen officials denied his request to return home to Mexico, and Galvan got no medical treatment from local health officials, according to FERN's latest story, published with Texas Observer. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
In abrupt reversal, USDA extends summer school food waivers
In a sudden reversal, the Department of Agriculture announced Monday that it would extend school meal waivers through Dec. 30—less than a week after Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue had said the programs would lapse by Sept. 30. The shift came amid an outcry from advocates and lawmakers from both parties, who argued that Perdue’s refusal to extend key waivers and flexibilities around free summer meals would worsen record levels of child hunger. (No paywall)
Grocery prices fall for second month in a row
Lower prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs were the driving factor for a slight decline in grocery prices during August, the second month in a row that supermarket prices were down, said the monthly Consumer Price Index. Despite the decreases, food inflation ran at 4.6 percent in the past 12 months, rising far more rapidly than the overall U.S. rate of 1.3 percent.
At poultry plants allowed to run faster processing lines, a greater risk of Covid-19
Forty percent of the poultry plants participating in the USDA's controversial line speed waiver program have had Covid-19 outbreaks, according to an analysis of FERN’s outbreaks database. Labor advocates have warned that faster speeds on crowded processing lines could expose slaughterhouse workers to a greater risk of Covid-19, and even the top federal workplace authority has suggested that meatpackers reduce line speeds to curb the spread of the virus.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
After record-low rate in 2019, hunger more than doubles in pandemic
Nearly 4 percent of U.S. households sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in 2019, including 5 million children, according to the USDA. Although those numbers are significant, they are the lowest on record since the USDA’s Economic Research Service began tracking these statistics in 1998. But by August of this year, those numbers had more than doubled.
Pandemic paradox: As food poverty rises, so does obesity
The Covid-19 pandemic has limited trips to the grocery store, shut down neighborhood markets and generally made it harder for people struggling financially to find affordable healthy food, reports Bloomberg. As a result, more people are relying on cheaper and more easily accessible fast and ultra-processed food, driving up rates of obesity around the world.
House chair: USDA coronavirus aid process ‘risks public distrust’
The Trump administration should be more forthcoming on how it decides which commodities qualify for its $16-billion coronavirus relief program, said House Agriculture chairman Collin Peterson. "Without consistent public clarity ... the program is at risk of public distrust and other commodities seeking future program eligibility are placed at a disadvantage," said Peterson in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
Meatpackers ignored warnings to plan for a pandemic, report finds
Experts and federal agencies repeatedly urged meatpackers to prepare for a potential future pandemic as far back as the Bush administration, yet none of the major packers had stocked personal protective equipment or trained personnel on pandemic response before the novel coronavirus began to spread in 2020, an investigation from ProPublica found.
Beef slumps while pork exports surge
Few states release data about Covid-19 in the food system
Over the past six months, Covid-19 has spread rapidly through the workforces of farms, food processing facilities, and meatpacking plants in nearly every state, infecting tens of thousands. Yet determining the exact number of workers who have contracted or died from the virus is virtually impossible, because few states are publicly reporting case and death data in the food and farm sectors.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Anti-hunger groups see promise in Biden-Harris ticket
With Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate confirmed, anti-hunger advocates say the presidential ticket is well equipped to tackle an urgent concern: food insecurity. Sen. Kamala Harris has consistently pushed for bolstering the social safety net, notably calling for the 15-percent increase in SNAP benefits that experts say would significantly reduce hunger. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
USDA to release coronavirus reserve funds, makes more products eligible
California finds bird flu virus in raw milk
Public health officials in California's Silicon Valley said tests found the bird flu virus in a container of raw milk purchased at a local store and warned consumers on Sunday not to consume the milk. The supplier, Raw Farm, of Fresno County, issued a recall of the batch of milk that was involved.