"Every penny I make goes towards medical bills (for my daughter). It breaks my heart, because sometimes my daughter will ask for bowl of cereal and I can't afford it."
Amanda Wagner, "Small Talks for Big Change: conversations around getting and growing good food"
Hunger and Food Insecurity
In a country as wealthy as the United States, it is alarming that many people still struggle to feed their families. In 2008, 17 million households (14.6 percent of all households) were food insecure. These households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. The prevalence of food insecurity was up from 11.1 percent (13 million households) in 2007 and was the highest observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995.
Food insecurity is the condition of not knowing where one's next meal is coming from. The term refers to the lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources. Food insecurity and the undernourishment that accompanies it - has far-reaching physical, emotional, and psychological effects. It also undermines the economic foundation and social fabric that holds communities together (See backgrounder on Hunger & Food Insecurity in the United States).
Many of the nation's food insecure are working Americans. The U.S. has the highest wage inequality of any industrialized nation and people can work full time at a minimum-wage job and still not make enough to cover the basic costs of living. Families in this situation often have to choose between food and other basic necessities such as rent, health care, or utility bills.
Federal Food Programs as a First Response
The government does provide a safety net in the form of federal food programs. The National School Lunch Program was first introduced in the 1940s, and the Food Stamp Program was enacted nationwide in 1974. The Food Stamp Program, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which provides low-income households with a debit card that can be used for groceries, served over 35 million households monthly in 2008. From the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, the various federal food programs are essential to the health of millions of Americans. (See backgrounder on Federal Food Programs)
Unfortunately, federal food programs face many challenges. One challenge is the near-constant threat of government cuts. Another challenge is that not everyone who is eligible for federal food assistance currently receives it, and for those who do receive assistance, it is not always sufficient. Additionally, there are hungry people who for a variety of reasons “ ranging from immigration status to income level “ do not currently qualify for federal food programs. Each of these challenges points to the need for a strengthened government safety net to prevent hunger and food insecurity. Further evidence can be seen in a rising dependence on the emergency feeding system of food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens in the U.S.
The Institutionalization of Emergency Feeding
In the decades that followed the Great Depression, soup kitchens and food pantries addressed the immediate food needs of those who had fallen upon unexpected hardship. In the 1980s an economic recession and sweeping cuts in both federal and state spending pushed millions of Americans into poverty. The number of soup kitchens and food pantries skyrocketed, and many providers found that far from helping people pull through emergency situations, they were instead replacing government-sponsored programs for those living in poverty. The emergency feeding system was becoming permanent and there was less impetus to address poverty as the underlying source of both hunger and food insecurity. Today, the demand for emergency services continues to rise faster than the soup kitchens and food pantries can keep pace, and the prevailing system of emergency food is no longer adequate or sustainable.
A Long-Term Vision of Food Security
With the recognition that emergency food alone will never solve the problem of hunger, anti-hunger advocates began to embrace a long-term vision of food security in the mid-1990s. This vision included, but was not limited to: a living wage; a strengthened and improved government safety net in the form of federal food programs and other basic benefits; increased access to nutritious foods in underserved communities; and community-based programs that promote self-reliance. Over the years, the concept of community food security has become increasingly integral to this long-term vision. Community food security refers to the ability of all people to access a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice. It is unique in its focus on the entire food system from the farms where food is grown to the tables where it is eaten.
This has allowed the community food security movement to build alliances which can confront not just food insecurity and dependence on emergency food, but the problems facing the entire food system. The issue of Domestic Hunger and Federal Food Programs cannot therefore be separated from other issues in the Food Security Learning Center, such as Nutrition, Family Farms, Rural Poverty, and Local & Regional Food Systems.
Reshaping Federal Food Programs
There are numerous models for integrating community food security perspectives into the federal food programs. Examples include efforts to encourage use of SNAP at local farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. Subsidized school meals serving local and regional food are another opportunity to encourage partnerships that further community food security. As author and activist Jan Poppendieck says, school meals have enormous potential to create markets for healthy, sustainably-grown farm products. Poppendieck is at the forefront of the movement to make school meals free and universal for all public school students. Such movements reflect the shift in the anti-hunger arena from food charity to food justice.
Ensuring the Basic Right to Food
The right to food is one of the most basic human rights, and federal food programs are an important means of safeguarding this right. The stronger and more comprehensive federal food programs are, the healthier the people of the United States will be. Backgrounders:
Sources:
Household Food Security in the United States 2008, USDA Report.
Poppendieck, Jan. Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement. New York: Vicking Press, 1998.
Serving Up Justice: How to Design an Emergency Feeding Program And Build Community Food Security. WhyHunger, 2006.
Fisher, Andy. Building the Bridge: Linking Food Banking and Community Food Security , Community Food Security Coalition and WhyHunger, 2005.
WHY Speaks Interview with Jan Poppendieck. Sept 2005.
USDA.gov
Updated 7/2010
