hunger

The National Geographic has photos from Houston, the Bronx and Osage, Iowa, to illustrate its story on "The new face of hunger." Writes Tracie McMillan, "The image of hunger in America today differs markedly from Depression-era images of the gaunt-faced unemployed scavenging for food on urban streets...In the United States more than half of hungry households are white, and two-thirds of those with children have at least one working adult—typically in a full-time job." A sociologist blames inadequate wages.

Participation in food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, is down for the fitfth month in a row, say USDA data. Some 46.1 million people received food stamps at latest count, down 3 percent since October.

USAID announced a first-of-its-kind strategy to save 2 million children from chronic malnutrition or stunting over the next five years and to hold acute malnutrition below 15 percent in areas with humanitarian crises. USAID chief Rajiv Shah and National Security Advisory Susan Rice unveiled the initiative at an annual food conference sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The "Feed the Future" program, which combines private sector and U.S. funding with local leadership to spur agricultural development overseas, "reached nearly 7 million smallholder farmers and helped to save 12.5 million children from the threat of hunger, poverty, and malnutrition in just the last year alone," says USAID, the parent agency.

Enrollment for food stamps, the largest U.S. anti-hunger program, is down for the fourth month in a row, according to new data from the Agriculture Department. Since the decline began last November, participation has dropped by 1.2 million people, or nearly 3 percent, to 46.2 million people in February, the latest month available.

Many poor neighborhoods are close to a supermarket - 86 pct are within a mile, says Tufts associate professor Parke Wilde in his U.S. Food Policy blog. That's a shorter distance than commonly thought and a shorter trip than faces higher-income people, according to research by Wilde and colleagues.

Rep Jim McGovern, who opposed food stamp cuts in the 2014 farm law, says opponents are not satisfied with narrowing the connection between utility assistance and additional food stamps.

There are 121 food banks at colleges, up from four in 2008, says a Michigan State University group in a Washington Post story that says high costs and limited funds force some students to go hungry.