food insecurity
Voters to decide constitutional ‘right to food’ in Maine
Maine enacted the country's first food sovereignty law in 2017 to encourage food self-sufficiency. Now, its voters will decide whether to declare a first-in-the-nation constitutional right to food "including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing."
U.S. pledges $10 billion at food summit, half for domestic programs
The United States joined dozens of countries at a UN-sponsored food summit in pledging on Thursday to reduce world hunger. The Biden administration said it would put $10 billion into the effort, half of it to be spent domestically and half abroad.
Q&A: Yolanda Soto says Covid-19 helped boost the market for imperfect produce
The Covid-19 pandemic upended the food supply chain in 2020, but massive quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables from Mexico kept flowing into the border town of Nogales, Arizona. Not all of it made it to American tables, however, or even out of Nogales. Instead, as is the case every year, millions of pounds of misshapen or otherwise imperfect produce was diverted to the landfill. Despite the pandemic, Borderlands Food Rescue managed to keep up its longtime work of salvaging those less-than-perfect tomatoes, cucumbers, mangoes, and watermelons for people in need.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
ERS report: Despite pandemic, U.S. food insecurity remained flat in 2020
One in 10 U.S. households were food insecure in 2020, the same level as a year earlier, the USDA's Economic Research Service reported Wednesday. The flat rate of food insecurity provided evidence that government and charitable programs during the Covid-19 pandemic tempered a rise in hunger despite the deep recession.
IUCN Congress dispatch: A paradigm shift for the food system
In the face of climate change, biodiversity loss, and growing global food insecurity, conservationists, farmers, and policymakers called for a “paradigm shift” in global food production at the IUCN World Conservation Congress on Tuesday. To get there, they urged the expansion of agroecology as a way to build a food system that can help protect and restore the environment while feeding the world.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
U.S. hunger rate is lowest since start of pandemic
New pandemic aid program encourages dairy donations to food banks
To reduce food waste and help feed hungry Americans, the USDA will spend an estimated $400 million to reimburse dairy organizations for donating products to food banks, said Deputy Agriculture Secretary Jewel Bronaugh on Wednesday. The donation program was the second component of pandemic relief to dairy farmers that would total $2 billion this year.
Food insecurity grows by a third due to pandemic
Some 1.2 billion people do not get enough to eat to sustain a healthy and active lifestyle in 76 countries monitored by the USDA for food insecurity, an increase of 291 million people, or 32 percent, caused by the pandemic. "The economies of the countries ... sharply contracted in 2020 due to the widespread pandemic, resulting lockdowns and other controls impacting business activity, employment and incomes," said the annual International Food Security Assessment.
SNAP increase of 40 cents a meal means $20 billion a year for public nutrition
The government will spend an additional $20 billion a year on food stamps, a 27-percent increase in SNAP benefits from pre-pandemic levels, after updating its figures on the cost of a healthy diet, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday. Anti-hunger groups said the additional 40 cents a meal per person would help millions of Americans avoid hunger.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Biden administration announces largest increase ever in SNAP benefits
The Biden administration will increase SNAP benefits by an average of 25 percent on Oct. 1 — the largest increase in the history of food stamps — based on a reassessment of the cost of a nutritious diet. Analysts and anti-hunger advocates said on Sunday that the increase would improve the diets of millions of poor Americans.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
SNAP falls short of meal costs in 41 percent of U.S. counties
First decline in global food prices in a year
Sharply lower prices for vegetable oils, down nearly 10 percent in a month, contributed to the first decline in the Food Price Index since last May, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Thursday. The index fell by 2.5 percent in June, although it was still about one-third higher than a year ago.
Ongoing delays in P-EBT slow rollout of Biden’s summer food programs
More than two months since the Biden administration announced the most ambitious summer food program in U.S. history, the USDA has approved benefits distribution plans for just 18 states — even with school out of session across the country.
USDA-FDA bill is blank check for SNAP, says GOP
The government is forecast to spend twice as much on SNAP this fiscal year — $114 billion — as it did before the pandemic, and the lead Republican on the House Appropriations Committee said Democrats wrote a blank check for food-stamp spending in the new fiscal year. Majority-party Democrats, meanwhile, said they wanted to make sure SNAP recipients receive their benefits.
Food insecurity eases, but remains stubbornly high for Black and Latino households
Food insufficiency remains above pre-pandemic levels for all Americans, but among Black and Latino households the problem is particularly acute, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
In New York City, gig workers facing food insecurity are fighting back
Demand for couriers grew during the pandemic, yet their conditions only deteriorated. Lockdowns cut into their hours, leaving many workers struggling to pay bills and feed families. Eighty percent of gig workers surveyed in the summer of 2020 by the University of California, Los Angeles, Labor Center said they weren’t making enough to meet household expenses. A third did not have enough for groceries.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
USDA announces major expansion of emergency food networks
The USDA announced on Friday that it will invest up to $1 billion to expand emergency food networks, bolstering the ability of food banks and local organizations to serve in-need communities.
Fear of reprisal kept immigrants from accessing federal aid in pandemic
Fear, fueled by the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, kept many low-income immigrant families from accessing non-cash benefits and other federal assistance programs they were eligible for in 2020, even as the pandemic deepened economic hardship, according to two new analyses released today from the Urban Institute.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
War devastates agriculture in Gaza
Two-thirds of the cropland in the Gaza Strip has been damaged by shelling, razing, and vehicle traffic since armed conflict began a year ago in the territory, said two UN agencies. The escalating agricultural damage exacerbated a food shortage, said the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Satellite Center.