poverty
Obama bolsters his foreign-aid legacy with Global Food Security Act
President Obama signed the bipartisan Global Food Security Act of 2016 yesterday, steering $7 billion toward agricultural development and hunger-relief efforts around the world, and ensuring that both public and private operations would continue to work together to fund these efforts in Africa and other food-insecure regions.
Congress passes global food-security bill
The House gave final congressional approval, 359-53, to a bill that calls for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to reduce hunger and malnutrition in developing nations. President Obama praised passage of the bill, which makes permanent the Feed the Future program, an early initiative of his administration.
For the poor, food banks may be best hope for diabetes care
As obesity becomes increasingly common in the U.S., food banks are trying to help their visitors manage diabetes as well as hunger, says The New York Times. Historically, food banks tried to satiate hunger with whatever food they could, even if it meant doling out chips and cans of sugary barbecue beans. But many of the people looking for food aid now suffer from poor nutrition and dangerous blood sugar levels, rather than too few calories.
Summer food program plateaus at 3.2 million children
Fewer than one of six eligible children takes part in the summer food program, a participation rate that plateaued in 2015 after three years of steady growth, says the Food Research and Action Center in a report released today. The anti-hunger group said Congress should expand the program as part of the pending update of child-nutrition programs costing $23 billion a year, headlined by school lunch.
Speaker Ryan calls for ‘flexibility’ in school-food programs
In the first plank of an election-year policy agenda, Speaker Paul Ryan said congressional Republicans "are producing reforms in federal policies that will give states, schools and local providers the flexibility they need to provide children access to healthy meals."
Reversing desertification through livestock grazing
The troubles for the villagers of Sianyanga, Zimbabwe, began in the late 1980s, when the Nalomwe River, which watered the village, went dry. Soon, the shade trees died and the villagers' cattle herds suffered for lack of water and forage, says a Pacific Standard story produced in partnership with FERN.
Food stamps are valuable aid but run short, says report
Some 46 million people, roughly one out of seven Americans, use food stamps each month to help put food on the table, says the White House. A report by the Council of Economic Advisors says, "New research ... shows benefit levels are often inadequate to sustain families through the end of the month.
USDA selects Seattle for job training ‘Center of Excellence’
The nonprofit Seattle Jobs Initiative will receive a $3.6 million grant to set up and operate a Center of Excellence to help states hone the employment and training programs offered through the food stamp program, the USDA announced. The center is part of an initiative in the 2014 farm law to help poor people find jobs and move up the employment ladder.
Extreme poverty rate to fall below 10 percent – World Bank
The World Bank projected the portion of the world living in extreme poverty will fall below 10 percent this year, the lowest rate ever. In a statement, the Bank said the projections were "fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030."
Poverty may matter more in diet than ‘food deserts’
Poverty appears to be a bigger factor in poor diets than living in areas without a supermarket nearby, say Ilya Rahkovsky and Samantha Snyder of USDA's Economic Research Service. In a 36-page report, the researchers say that living in a "low income, low-access" (LILA) area "has only a modest negative impact on the healthfulness of food purchases - a difference too small to explain much of the national disparities in diet quality and obesity.”
Rural, urban poor children show differences in memory skills
Low-income children do not score as well as higher-income children in tests of "working memory," the ability to manipulate information in the mind.
Low-income children now a majority in public schools-Study
"Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation's public schools," said the Southern Education Foundation in a research bulletin. "In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013." The South and the West accounted for most of the states where low-income children were the majority of school enrollment.
Rajiv Shah says he will leave USAID in early 2015
The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rajiv Shah, announced he will leave the agency early next year, said the New York Times. Shah served briefly as an agriculture undersecretary before becoming USAID administrator in 2010.
Schools in poor areas adopt free-meals-for-all option
Some 51.5 percent of schools in high-poverty areas offer free breakfast and lunch to all students through the so-called community eligibility provision of the 2010 school food law, said USDA.
Half a billion family farms
Family farms account for 500 million of the estimated 570 million farms in the world, says Insights magazine, published by the International Food Policy Research Institute, a think tank. "Farming is one of the last economic activities performed largely by families working together." On average, family farms are smaller than nonfamily farms - 475 million farms are less than 2 hectares, or 5 acres. In developing countries, the farms are heavily diversified as a way to protect the family against losses rather than try to maximize profits. Many family and smallholder farmers are poor and work off the farm too.
One in seven American households is food insecure
An estimated 14.3 percent of American households, or one out of seven, often had trouble buying enough food or affording enough nutritious food last year, said the Agriculture Department. The "food insecurity" figure was almost the same as in 2012 but has declined from 14.9 percent in 2011. Rates surged during the 2008-09 recession and remain high.
Ryan would fold food stamps into antipoverty grants
House Budget chairman Paul Ryan "outlined a plan to combat poverty on Thursday that would consolidate a dozen programs into a single 'Opportunity Grant' that largely shifts antipoverty efforts from the federal government to the states," said the New York Times.
Senators see different school lunch needs – flexibility, funding
Republicans asked about local flexibility and Democrats focused on funding when the Senate Agriculture Committee sat down to hear about they sat down to talk about renewal of school lunch and child nutrition programs. Together the programs cost around $19 billion a year with school meals getting $14 billion. The programs are due for reauthorization in 2015.
Number of food insecure Americans soars 40 percent in two years
Some 47.4 million Americans — roughly one of every seven — were food insecure during 2023, meaning they were unable at times to acquire enough food, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday. It was a 40 increase in two years, and while the report did not suggest factors behind the rise, it coincided with the end of pandemic-era food assistance.