food security
‘Substantial investments’ needed in public nutrition, says senator
Congress can reduce hunger during the pandemic by extending the 15 percent increase in SNAP benefits and providing an additional $3 billion for WIC, as suggested by President Biden, said Sen. Bob Casey to the Consumer Federation of America on Tuesday. "We have to stay on that path where we're focused on substantial investments" in public nutrition.
More than 1 million SNAP households shop online
The USDA is trying to expand online grocery shopping for SNAP recipients by adding local and regional grocers to the program, said Agriculture deputy undersecretary Brandon Lipps. The USDA said over 1 million SNAP households shopped online in September, out of more than 22 million households participating in the program.
P-EBT to be renewed for a full year, says Pelosi
The stopgap USDA program that helps low-income parents buy food for their children who miss school meals because of closures will be renewed for a full year, rather than expiring on Sept. 30, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday. Extension of the so-called Pandemic EBT program was part of nearly $8 billion in nutrition assistance added to a government funding bill during negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Pelosi said in a statement.
Advocates implore Congress to increase spending on anti-hunger programs
In a largely positive review of government programs to address mounting hunger during Covid-19, a panel of experts and advocates speaking at the National Food Security Conference on Wednesday encouraged Congress to boost spending on the anti-hunger programs it has developed since the pandemic began. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Food prices forecast to decline to longterm average in 2021
Grocery prices will rise a modest 1.5 percent in 2021, close to the long-term average and half of the larger-than-usual increase expected this year, said the USDA in its first forecast of food inflation in the new year.
Food stamp rolls surge by 6 million people during pandemic
Some 43 million people — or more than one in eight Americans — received food stamps in May, an increase of 6.2 million in three months since the coronavirus pandemic swept the country and economic recession threw millions of people out of work. SNAP enrollment is the highest since October 2017. (No paywall)
Food box misses goal of 40 million deliveries
The Farmers to Families Food Box program, the $3 billion face of the Trump administration's response to US food insecurity during the pandemic, delivered 25 million boxes of food to nonprofit organization such as food banks as of Monday, said the USDA. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
World Food Prize goes to scientist who ‘transformed the way the world saw soils’
Rattan Lal, one of the world's leading soil scientists, is this year's winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize, "the Nobel of agriculture," for his breakthrough research on the importance of carbon to soil health and the potential of carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. Lal's research "transformed the way the world saw soils," said the foundation that awards the annual prize.
Coronavirus lands haymaker on U.S. farm sector
In its first assessment since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, the government forecast lower prices for U.S. crops and livestock as a worldwide economic slowdown, the result of aggressive efforts to squash the virus, weakens the global appetite for food. The notable exceptions are wheat and rice, where panic buying has driven up prices for the food grains, said the USDA on Thursday. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
SNAP enrollment is lowest in a decade
Food stamp enrollment is forecast for 37.1 million people this fiscal year, the lowest figure since the early days of the Great Recession. The antihunger program could cost $69.2 billion this fiscal year, according to Senate appropriators, down 6 percent from fiscal 2019, which ended on Sept. 30, and far below the nearly $80 billion cost when SNAP participation peaked early this decade.
A decade later, food insecurity rate returns to pre-recession level
Some 11.1 percent of U.S. households are food insecure, meaning they did not have enough food at times during 2018 due to a lack of money or other resources, said the USDA on Wednesday. It was the lowest food insecurity rate since 2007, just before the Great Recession drove food stamp enrollment and costs to record highs.
World hunger up, afflicts 820 million people
One in nine of the earth's population is undernourished and the global hunger rate is creeping up from the low set in 2015, said five UN agencies in a report on Monday. Hunger is most prevalent in Africa, at nearly double the global level, but on every continent, women are more likely than men to go hungry.
Initiative will use the ‘power of poultry’ to lift farmers from subsistence
A new project, dubbed “Hatching Hope,” aims to improve the livelihoods of 100 million people, focusing on women farmers, in the coming decade through chicken farming, which is seen as a quick way to produce food at home and for sale in town.
To replace proposed food stamp cuts, USDA raises Harvest Box, again
The White House proposed a $19 billion cut in food stamps for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, achieving the 25 percent reduction in SNAP mainly by putting forward, once again, "America's Harvest Box" of canned and nonperishable food. The administration also proposed on Monday to apply SNAP work requirements more broadly and to include older Americans in them. Both ideas were rejected last year by lawmakers.
SNAP enrollment declining to pre-recession levels
Diet for a healthy planet: Half the red meat and sugar, more grains, nuts, produce
A three-year collaboration by three dozen experts in nutrition, agriculture, economics, and the environment says it has solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to feed an expected 10 billion people at mid-century without imperiling future food production. The answer is the “planetary health diet.”
World Food Prize awarded to pair for work on maternal and child nutrition
Two nutrition advocates whose focus on maternal and child nutrition helped reduce the number of stunted children in the world by 10 million in five years are the winners of the World Food Prize for 2018, the award’s sponsor announced on Monday.
To get food stamps, applicants navigate a maze of paperwork
It's far from simple to qualify for food stamps, says Harvest Public Media in the first story of a five-part series this week on SNAP. Most states allow people to apply online as well as by paper applications. For Iowa and Missouri, the printed form runs six pages, but it's 17 pages in Kansas.
Despite its hopes, China will remain a food importer, analysts say
President Xi Jinping has made food security a national priority since becoming China's leader a decade ago, with a multi-prong drive for self-sufficiency in food. It is "an improbable, if not impossible, goal," say analysts from the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a brief.