Hunter program provides food for local food banks in Georgia

Donated deer meat feeds thousands of Georgians through the 
Hunters for the Hungry program. (Photo by E. Jones, Grist)

By participating in Hunters for the Hungry, Georgia hunters use their harvested deer to feed their own families and help local food banks address food insecurity, which is often concentrated in the state's rural counties.

Sponsored by the Georgia Wildlife Federation, the program allows hunters who harvest more meat than they need to donate the extra. Emily Jones for Grist reports, "This year, the program has set a goal of collecting 140,000 pounds of donations, which the state Department of Natural Resources estimates can feed 560,000 people."

While not all donated meat is used to feed rural residents, a large percentage stays in the rural community where the deer were harvested. "Across Georgia, nearly 15% of families are food insecure," Jones explains. "Rural Hancock County, nestled between Atlanta and Augusta, has the highest rate in the country of children facing food insecurity, at 47%."

Many people outside of rural systems tend to think that because rural areas have large farms, everyone has plenty of food. But that isn't how the U.S. food industry works. Most of the peanuts, chickens and eggs produced on Georgia farms supply "the wider U.S. food system. . . which means the majority of people who grow food and farm animals have to rely on grocery stores to buy their food just like people in big cities."

So far, the Hunters for the Hungry program has proved successful, and its state-sponsored support is growing. Jones reports, "The state recently increased funding to $350,000 annually, allowing the program to expand from six processors to 56 and add freezer trailers to store additional meat."

Trump administration cancels household food security report

Photo by Austin Kehmeier, Unsplash

The annual report on household food security produced by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be discontinued, Dan Frosch, Patrick Thomas and Andrea Petersen of The Wall Street Journal reported.

The 2024 report is set to be released on Oct. 22 and will be the last of a series of reports that started in 1990 as a result of a 10-year comprehensive plan that was developed in accordance with the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act (NNMRR).

A press release from the USDA stated that the reports were “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,” and “subjective, liberal fodder.”

Despite concerns from researchers, policy analysts, academics and others across the nation, the USDA states that it has other “timely and accurate data sets available.”

You can read more about how the USDA defines food insecurity and the survey questions they use here.

As international grain sales dry up, Kansas farmers also face the loss of Food for Peace and other programs

Congressman Bob Dole of Kansas, standing, was a dedicated advocate for
the Food for Peace Act. (University of Kansas, Dole Archives photo)

Rich rivers of wheat have grown on the Kansas high plains for nearly 200 years. In 1953, a Kansas farmer believed he could help ease Cold War tensions by providing some of his surplus grain to a hungry world. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, another Kansan, endorsed the idea and created a program to support it.

"Food for Peace has sent sacks of grain stamped 'From the American People' to more than four billion people in 150 countries around the world," reports Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times. "Now it is effectively dead."

In February, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, ended the program when he cut the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had administered it. Williamson writes. "Kansas’s Republican lawmakers tried to save it but failed to persuade President Donald Trump, who last month proposed cutting the entire 2026 budget for Food for Peace as well as another food aid program dear to Kansans, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program," which began in 2003.

With Food for Peace fading, many Kansas farmers are hurting. "It was the latest blow to farmers, particularly in Kansas, where about 80% of those on the high plains voted for Trump and agriculture makes up almost half of the state’s economy," Williamson explains. Instead of a more competitive market for their crops, which Trump campaigned on, Kansas farmers are sitting on grain and facing tariffs that have choked off import sales.

The Pawnee County Co-op in Larned, Kan., is "owned by its farmers, and is one of the biggest brokers of high plains wheat. Before Trump took office in January, the co-op sold half its grain abroad, to European, Asian and African buyers," Willaimson adds. "Now the co-op’s foreign sales are 'zero,' said Kim Barnes, its chief financial officer. . . .The co-op was stuck with 1.5 million bushels of grain sorghum after Trump started his tariff war with China."

Tom Giessel, a retired farmer, is disappointed with this administration. He told Williamson, "These people really don’t know the story of Food for Peace and the roots of it. . . . Farmers shipping grain to where people were hungry — that we did these kinds of things is really what made America great.”

SNAP cuts, requirements could leave more rural Americans hungry; critics say benefit to taxpayers unclear

Critics of  proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are struggling to find evidence of how they will help U.S. taxpayers. But they say one thing is clear: The changes outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill could leave thousands of rural Americans hungry.

"Cuts to SNAP would affect residents of every state in all types of communities, but advocates fear the fallout could especially hit rural people, who are more dependent on food stamps, the largest anti-hunger program in the nation," reports Kevin Hardy for The Daily Montanan. The bill "expands work requirements to include people between 55 and 64 years old and those with children aged 7 or older." It contains stiffer rules for counties with higher unemployment numbers.

Government penalties for not working a required number of hours are dramatically tougher on rural residents because more remote places have far fewer business and employment opportunities. Hardy adds, "Rural hunger is already on the rise and grocery stores face an uphill battle to keep going in the most isolated parts of the country."

Residents in southeastern Missouri's Mississippi County, many of whom can scarcely afford a roof over their heads and food on their tables, provide an example of who SNAP cuts will hurt the most. Hardy explains, "Limited job opportunities leave many workers struggling to cover housing and grocery bills. Nearly a quarter of residents live below the poverty line — almost double the state and national averages."

SNAP cuts stand to do irreparable harm to rural grocery stores that already face razor-thin profit margins. "The National Grocers Association has opposed the potential cuts, saying SNAP provides not only critical food, but also meaningful boosts to local employment and economies," Hardy reports. "The organization, which represents retail and wholesale grocers, said cuts will particularly hurt independent and rural stores."

"Deep cuts to SNAP would have an uneven impact on rural stores," Hardy explains. "For Kay Voss, the cuts would be catastrophic at her Stratton Country Market in southwest Nebraska. She estimates 40% of sales are paid for with SNAP." She told Hardy, "“I’d probably close the doors."

Hungry people have fewer places to go in rural America, which adds stress to regional food banks that have already faced an uptick in need because of food inflation. Hardy reports, "Cuts to the SNAP program will drive up demand on food banks, especially in rural areas that have long struggled with access and transportation to secure fresh foods."

Opinion: Rural Americans already face food insecurity. Will Republican lawmakers leave them even hungrier?

Most Americans don't consider hunger a political
issue. (Adobe Stock photo)

Many rural residents already face the daily struggle of not having enough food. Republican lawmakers eager to cut SNAP benefits may be about to make their battle with hunger worse. "These are anything but good times in rural America, which has been hit by everything from tariffs to extreme weather to bird flu and immigration crackdowns," writes José Andrés in his opinion for The Washington Post. "On top of those crises, Congress is now adding another — threatening to cut federal food benefits as the Republican leadership plays politics with the budget."

Despite rural America being where the country's agricultural powerhouses are, rural residents are more likely to suffer from food insecurity and poverty. "The government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — once known as food stamps — is a lifeline for entire rural economies," Andrés explains. "Poverty rates are actually higher outside cities than in them. So it should be no surprise to learn that families in rural counties use SNAP more."

The desire to cut SNAP by Republican lawmakers representing rural regions seems like a particularly harmful mismatch. "In some of the reddest states in the country, where Donald Trump won by 20 points or more in 2024, SNAP benefits are about as widely used as they are in states such as California and New York," Andrés writes. "In Louisiana, where House Speaker Mike Johnson is from, it’s even higher: 1 in 5 count on SNAP to meet their basic food needs."

Congress has planned cuts anyway. "Under the House budget plan, SNAP is facing $230 billion in cuts over 10 years: a massive 20 percent reduction," Andrés explains. "More than two-thirds of SNAP recipients are either children, elderly or disabled. Three-fourths live below the poverty line. For a family of three, that means earning less than $26,650 a year."

Addressing hunger isn't a political issue for most Americans. "Support for hunger and nutrition programs is broad and deep, stretching from evangelical groups to progressive nonprofits," Andrés adds. "Doing good can be good politics. One of the reasons the government exists is to take care of our forgotten neighbors who need a helping hand. If 'America First' means anything, it surely means taking care of the forgotten Americans in so-called flyover country."

Zaytinya photo

José Andrés is a chef, restaurateur and
founder of the nonprofit organization
World Central Kitchen.
Read his full opinion here.

Its goal was to create a modern farm to feed the world, but despite $500 million in funding it just feeds part of an island

Due to a lack of farming expertise, Sensei spent millions building its greenhouses.

Larry Ellison wanted his techno-savvy farm, Sensei Ag, to feed millions -- even in hard-to-farm places like Africa. But eight years and more than half a billion dollars later, the venture has failed to grow its Hawaiian greenhouses into a model that would modernize agricultural practices, reports Tom Dotan of The Wall Street Journal.

The cutting-edge technology Sensei boasts is rarely used, and the company has been "beset by problems typical to tech startups, including executive changeovers, shifting goals, and bad Wi-Fi," Dotan explains. Sensei leadership's lack of agricultural expertise has been costly and caused delays. "Some of its top executives are tech veterans who have no commercial agricultural experience."

Ellison, who is co-founder of software giant Oracle, has "called the project, and the island more broadly, part of a grand experiment in sustainability," Dotan writes. "Far from feeding the world, its crops of lettuce and cherry tomatoes are only enough to supply the few groceries and restaurants on the island of Lanai and [other] spots around Hawaii."

Even though Sensei has plenty of funding and technology expertise, the concept struggled to gain momentum. "Employees said Ellison vacillated on which crops to grow," Dotan explains. "One early idea was to repair the land by growing crops with minerals that would fertilize the soil— for example, by growing cabbages and feeding them to goats to make fertilizer. That idea was abandoned for cost."

Sensei set lofty targets, but its leadership failed to consult Hawaiian farmers or agriculture experts, which cost the company millions of dollars and stalled development. "Ellison hired an Israeli firm to build the greenhouses, and although Israel is considered a leader in greenhouses, the structures were designed for that country’s desert climate and weren’t built to handle Lanai’s high humidity or gusts of up to 80 mile-per-hour winds," Dotan reports. "Ellison said the structures would cost $12 million, but they ended up costing closer to $50 million."

Given its lack of success, "Sensei has moved away from its original mission to feed the world," Dotan adds. The company has restructured its goal to support farming with state-of-the-art software.

Opinion: No American should go hungry. Supporting food banks and policy changes are part of the solution.

The U.S. exported 2.26 billion bushels of soybeans
in 2022. (Adobe Stock photo)

The United States is a top global producer of corn, wheat, soybeans, sugarcane, potatoes and rice. In terms of exports, it exceeds all other countries by trading more than 20% of what it grows. With all the food grown and exported, why do so many Americans live with food insecurity? They shouldn't, writes The New York Times editorial board.

One measure of how many Americans go hungry is the number of meals served by Feeding America in 2023: an astonishing 5.3 billion. "In a country of more than 330 million people, it is evidence of how widespread and persistent food insecurity remains," they write. "Food insecurity is defined by the Department of Agriculture as the lack of access to enough food for an active and healthy life. . . . In some of the poorest regions of America, mostly rural areas in the South, food insecurity among children is as high as 48%. But it is present in every county in the country."

Even as local, state and federal governments work to address how to feed everyone adequately, "Feeding America, a network of roughly 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, is filling the void every day for tens of millions of Americans," they write. "Feeding America needs help to continue this essential frontline work. The average cost of a single meal may be only $3.99, but when that is multiplied by the millions of meals required, it adds up to $33 billion that families need and don’t have for groceries."

Hunger is more prevalent in minority communities. The editorial board reports, "Roughly one-quarter of Black Americans experience food insecurity, as compared with 10 percent of white non-Hispanic Americans, according to a report by Feeding America. In some parts of the rural American South, roughly two-thirds of Black people are experiencing food insecurity."

Meanwhile, U.S. policy changes could address ongoing food insecurity by allowing more Americans to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The editorial board adds, "Most families of four that receive SNAP benefits have incomes below $40,560. Feeding America estimates that that leaves around 20 million people in a no man’s land, where they can neither afford sufficient food nor qualify for help to pay for it."

Opinion: We could end poverty. 'Why don't we do it?'

Census Bureau graph

In 2021, U.S. poverty hit the resounding record low of 7.8% -- a good thing, but only a reprieve. Once pandemic benefits ended and inflation shot upward, the number of Americans living in poverty soared, with the Supplemental Poverty Measure posting a near 60% increase, with 11.4% of U.S. citizens living in poverty in 2022. "And it's all because politicians allowed proven income support programs to expire," writes Lakeisha McVey in her opinion for OtherWords.com.

"I'm an expert on poverty. I've lived it most of my life in Iowa. I studied it as a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow in rural West Virginia and in Washington, D.C., and now I help people experiencing poverty across the country tell their own stories to change policy.

"People can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get an education, and work multiple jobs. But in the face of rising prices, low wages, high rents, and a broken healthcare system, it's often not enough. Without a safety net and a level playing field for families, financial security is often out of reach.

"When I was growing up in Des Moines, my mom had a stable job with the state, but her pay wasn't enough for a real home for my two siblings and me. Iowa, like every state, has a low-income housing crisis. And families of color like mine experience greater challenges obtaining affordable housing. We bounced around shelters, churches and motel rooms.

"Despite a stigma about accepting public assistance, we benefited from SNAP (aka 'food stamps') and the Women, Infants and Children program. But like other low-income families, we had to navigate the 'benefits cliff.' When my mother made just $10 more, we'd lose the benefits we needed for sufficient, regular meals.

"My father suffered from opioid addiction. When he was eventually able to get stable employment and rejoin our family, we finally got an apartment where the schools were decent. But a brain aneurysm suddenly took his life, and we ended up back on the opposite side of the city where the underfunded schools offered less opportunity.

"I wanted to stay in my school, so I spent four hours a day commuting on public buses and on foot. I knew I needed to get into college to be able to help my family financially. Now I have a steady job, and so does my husband.

"But everyday struggles don't end. The brokenness of our healthcare system burst into my life again when our baby was born with a fatal condition. The medical costs ran nearly $1 million in just the first few months of his tragically short life. . . . What could prepare someone for that?

"Thankfully, my employer pays 100% of my health insurance. That's a rarity. If I'd been out of work or worked elsewhere, we would've gone bankrupt as we suffered the most tragic thing that could ever happen to us as parents.

"These are just a few of the structural obstacles low-income people face every day. But there are solutions. The advocates I work with reported enormous relief after politicians finally agreed to invest in helping children and families during the Covid-19 crisis.

"The expanded Child Tax Credit cut child poverty nearly in half. Expanded food programs through SNAP lifted more than 3 million people out of poverty and staved off an expected spike in hunger. Housing subsidies kept nearly 2.5 million people out of poverty and in their homes. And Medicaid enrollment protections reduced the number of uninsured people by 1.5 million.

"The year those programs were implemented, the Supplemental Poverty Measure fell to 7.8% — its lowest ever level. But when politicians rejected continuing this vital help for families, it increased by a record amount. This is a failure for families across the country. We need to renew and expand those programs as soon as possible. . . . Poverty is solvable. We know what works. Why don't we do it?"

Lakeisha McVey is a bereaved mother, social justice advocate and leader of the Experts on Poverty Program at RESULTS.

Is learning to garden a way to prevent food insecurity?

A youngster in Letcher County, Ky. enjoys the family garden.
(Photo by Silas Walker, Lexington Herald-Leader)

Many rural Kentuckians struggle with food insecurity, but teaching residents how to garden might be one answer to the problem, reports Rick Childress of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Rising food prices and a sudden cut off of Covid-related federal benefits have made it harder for many in Eastern Kentucky and other rural areas of the state to access healthy, nutritious foods. While local pantries work to bridge the access gap by providing food, other nonprofits and researchers are trying to provide more ways for folks to grow or buy more of their own produce locally."

Gardening as a way of life predates the "region's decades of coal booms," Childress writes. "Jason Brashear, interim director of the Pine Mountain Settlement School said, 'Before coal, many people in the mountains survived and thrived on subsistence farming.'" Brashear told Childress: "If we go back in our history 75 years ago, everybody gardened. Everybody had some sort of a farmstead that they produced the majority of the food that they ate in the year." As coal jobs, money and local grocery stores entered the region, the popularity and knowledge of gardening dwindled.

Childress reports, "One program that has helped many 'return back to gardening' is Grow Appalachia, Brashear said. For over 13 years, the Berea College strategic initiative has partnered with nonprofits in multiple states to provide seeds and other gardening supplies needed to make an organic garden, as well as the education on how to grow and preserve that produce." Candace Mullins, the executive director of Grow Appalachia, told Childress: "Having the resources is a huge barrier to learning how to garden. It's expensive to buy hose, seeds, fertilizer, plants — I mean, you could easily spend $1,000 trying to get a garden going for a new gardener." Childress adds, "Since Grow Appalachia started, over 7,000 families have participated and harvested nearly 7 million pounds of produce, Mullins said."

"The Pine Mountain Settlement School has been a Grow Appalachia partner since 2010 and so far this growing season, they have 45 families involved in the program who have produced over 14,000 pounds of produce. Along with receiving supplies, they also participate in educational meetings at the school. Being able to access fresh food is perhaps just as big of an obstacle as affording it," Childress reports. 

Once food is grown and harvested, it has to be prepared, which takes learning. "A University of Kentucky research project, called Laurel HARVEST, aims to educate Laurel County residents on how to cook nutritious meals," Childress writes. "Kathryn Cardarelli, a UK faculty member in the College of Public Health leading the project, said the multi-year study offers a blend of in-person and Zoom sessions on topics like preparing food, eating healthy on a budget, and reading labels."

Winner of award for community journalism reminds us why we need it; he revealed hunger in an affluent region

Brian PJ Cronin (Photo by Beth Cronin, via Flagpole magazine)

Brian PJ Cronin is this year's recipient of the Rollin M. "Pete" McCommons Award for Distinguished Community Journalism from the University of Georgia's Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He won "for his four-part series on food insecurity in the affluent New York state area covered by his paper, The Highlands Current, and entitled Hunger in the Highlands," reports Pete McCommons for Flagpole magazine in Athens, Ga. The award, affectionately dubbed "the Petebody," a la the university's Peabody Awards, was established in 2018 to celebrate the relationships and community efficacy good local journalism can create.

 

This Adobe Stock photo ran with each story in the series.

"We were impressed by the depth and richness of this reporting, and especially the time and resources he was given to carry out this project," Kyser Lough, the chair of the McCommons award committee, told Flagpole. "He used well-rounded sourcing to find the relevant data and people necessary to build a deeper narrative, which allowed him to thoroughly present the topic and then start exploring what people were doing about it. . . . His work highlights the need for in-depth coverage like this that can fully explore the nuance and context of a community topic and the importance of community news outlets."

In his brief acceptance speech, Cronin described his work as "a dicey gig," and  he reflected on journalists' unique bonds with fellow citizens and local businesses. "As I was told by my editor when I started writing for The Highlands Current, there is nothing quite like covering the community in which you live. One week you're walking down Main Street, and everyone is shaking your hand and thanking you for exposing government corruption, and the next week you're doing all your grocery shopping two towns away so that no one throws a punch at you in the check-out line. . . . It’s up to small, local, independent news organizations with boots on the ground and knowledge of their communities to keep their communities from crumbling. Big Tech is not going to do it for us. There may be publishers espousing the supposed benefits that A.I. will bring shrinking newsrooms and time-crunched reporters, but I can assure you, there is no chatbot that is willing to sit through a four-hour zoning board meeting. . . . Thank you for creating an award for community journalism."

The series also won the only Civic and Community Service Award that the National Newspaper Association gave last year. It won other NNA awatds, including one for a series in infrastructure.

Amid active missile strikes, land mines and destroyed equipment, Ukrainian farmers battle to eke out crops

Ukraine photos in outline map of the nation (Howard G. Buffett Foundation)

Ukrainian farmers struggle to continue their labors in war zones. Their equipment is targeted, and as less of their land is planted, the world will be a hungrier and more dangerous place, reports Clinton Griffiths of Farm Journal. "Prior to the invasion, Ukraine was the world’s biggest exporter of sunflower oil and sunflower meal, the fourth-largest exporter of corn and the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. All told, Ukrainian farmers were growing about 100 million metric tons of commodities."

Illinois farmer and philanthropist Howard G. Buffett (son of Warren Buffett) is in Ukraine working to help farmers through his foundation, a global entity that works to mitigate human suffering. Buffett told Griffiths, "A lot of farmers are fighting on the front line and die on the front line, which has a huge impact on how you continue to function in your agricultural sector. This isn’t just a war on civilians, this is a war on agriculture. If people cannot feed themselves. . . . it breeds conflict. When Ukraine fails, in terms of their ability to produce agricultural products, the world becomes less safe."

Ukraine is in green. (Wikipedia globe)

Griffith writes, "Ukrainian farmers have learned it’s increasingly more difficult to grow, harvest and ship products abroad. From limited and high-priced inputs to a lack of labor, production problems appear to be a reality for the foreseeable future." Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co., told Griffins, “Ukraine, no matter what happens with the war, will probably see corn and sunflower production 40% to 50% below normal."

What's unfolding in Ukraine is difficult for American farmers to imagine. “There are landmines on hundreds of thousands of acres,” Buffet told Griffith. “More than $4 billion worth of commodities have been stolen; there’s infrastructure damaged and 84,000 pieces of farm equipment have been destroyed, and it’s not stopping. . . . Mykola Solskyi, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian policy and food said the country’s cultivated areas have decreased by about 25%. . . . Solskyi said, “There are areas farmers cannot cultivate . . . . A considerable amount of land is polluted with explosives.” 

"This year, Buffett says his goal is to spend $300 million in support of Ukrainian agriculture. That includes finding ways to provide lower interest rates for loans and moving equipment and inputs to areas in need," Griffith reports. "With a global lens, Buffett has witnessed how important Ukraine is to world stability. For him, it outweighs potentially lower prices when he hauls corn to the elevator in Decatur, Ill."  Buffett told Griffith, “I know some farmers think they’re a competitor. That’s natural. If you want to think that way, that means your neighbor is also your competitor. Yet, we don’t treat our neighbor like they’re our competitor; we treat neighbors like neighbors.”

End of pandemic means end of extra food benefits in most states; a look at one that already did it shows struggles

The poor wait for free food in Hazel Green, Kentucky.
(Photo by Reshma Kirpalani, The Washington Post)

"In the richest country in the world, some 25 million households — including 12 million households with children under the age of 18 — reported that they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat, according to recent Census Bureau data," reports Arohi Pathak of the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute.

Why would so many people go hungry? The answer is simple: Some people don't have enough money for food, and the problem is getting worse, with inflation. It is about to get worse at the end of this month, with the end of extra food benefits for 41 million Americans. To illustrate what will happen, Tim Craig of The Washington Post went to one of the 18 states that have ended their emergencies and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program allotments in the past year."

Craig met Kenny Blair and his wife in Hazel Green, Kentucky, a small town in the Appalachian foothills. He reports, "Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities. . . . With Kentucky serving as a warning beacon, social services agencies and charities across the country are now preparing for a summer of misery as food prices continue to soar due to inflation."

The newspaper in Norton, Virginia, alerted its readers this week.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which includes about 3,600 charities, told Craig, “We are bracing, and our agencies, member food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens are not prepared for what is about to hit them. This reduction, and end of the public-health emergency, could not be coming at a worse time.”

Not every state is completely severing benefits. "Political leaders in some states are considering ways to soften the impact of SNAP benefit reductions. . . . Last month, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation guaranteeing a minimum $95 per month SNAP benefit, the first state to do so, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Coughlin told Craig, "I believe, that it is closer to a moral obligation than a government function to make sure the people are fed. In every town, in every state, even in affluent communities, there is somebody who is hungry.”

SNAP benefits will end in 32 states; food pantries aim to fill the gap; it may not be possible to meet the demand

Photo by Erin Schaff, The New York Times

Across 32 states, emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will end in March. The drop in assistance has local food pantries gearing up to feed more families and hoping they will have enough. "Food bank managers fear that demand will spike further in March, when officials roll back pandemic-era increases to SNAP benefits," reports Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez of Kaiser Health News. "The program, administered by the Department of Agriculture, provides monthly stipends to people with low incomes to spend on food. Before 2020, those payments averaged a little more than $200 and were hiked by a minimum of $95 during the pandemic."

"Friends in Service Helping food pantry is known in rural northeastern Nevada as FISH," writes Rodriguez. "The food pantry is one of a few in this city of about 20,000 people. In January, FISH provided food boxes to nearly 790 people. . . Officials estimate FISH families will see a 30% to 40% decrease in SNAP payments as emergency allotments tied to the public health emergency halt in 32 states, including Nevada." Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Kentucky, and South Dakota, have already ended the emergency allotments.

Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy for GRACE, a nonprofit run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, focused on reducing childhood hunger, told Rodriguez, "We have so many households who simply aren’t going to know that this is happening. They’re going to go to the grocery store and expect to have money in their account and not be able to buy the food they need to feed their families. . . .There’s just no comparing the scale of SNAP to the charitable food sector. It’s simply not possible to make up that difference.”

Rodriquez reports, "In Montana, the expanded SNAP benefits were cut in summer 2021. Brent Weisgram, vice president and chief operating officer of the Montana Food Bank Network, said that reporting from the network’s partners shows a 24% increase in the number of households seeking assistance from emergency food pantries from July 2021 to July 2022. Weisgram said food pantries are not prepared to absorb the impact of the cut to the largest federal nutrition assistance program and are strictly a supplemental resource."

Tammy King, a volunteer at FISH, told Rodriquez, “I feel that everybody who has the power to help is doing everything they can to help us. You just gotta look at your food and say, ‘OK, how long can I make this last and make a difference in someone’s life?’”

Cost of living and child care are at the heart of rural family concerns, survey by Save the Children shows

They survey asked respondents to name one or two top issues.
(Graph by Save the Children Action Network)

A rural-voter survey sponsored by the political arm of Save the Children, "shows that rural residents are facing several challenges, including worries about the ability to feed their children and access to good and affordable child care," reports Kristi Eaton of The Daily Yonder. According to the survey: “Rural voters deem inflation to be the greatest challenge facing rural families. In an open-ended question about the biggest problems facing families in rural areas, respondents are most apt to volunteer gas prices and inflation. When asked about specific problems in their area, 68% say children not having enough to eat is a serious problem.”

When it came to opinions on childcare, "More than half (55%) said that high-quality and affordable child care has become less accessible since the pandemic," Eaton reports. "Additionally, a majority (54%) of rural voters said there are only some or very few high-quality, affordable early education programs in their area."

Christy Gleason, executive director of Save the Children Action Network, told Eaton: "Congress and state legislatures have taken incremental steps to provide relief on child care and hunger but more must be done to address the scale of the crisis we see in these numbers. From boosting rural development in the farm bill to reviving the expanded child tax credit and increasing state and federal investments, rural families want to see bold leadership from their elected representatives in the new year.”

A bipartisan team of pollsters and staff from Save the Children will brief Congress on the findings of the survey Jan. 18, Eaton reports.

White House effort could change how nation thinks about food in relation to health; two projects mention rural areas

Biden (Photo by Yuri Gripas/Pool/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Today's White House its Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health "is a big deal because it could lead to big changes in how the country thinks about and uses food in relation to physical and mental health," Denise-Marie Ordway writes for Journalist's Resource, a service of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

CBS reports that the last such conference, in 1969, "led to a major expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, and gave rise to the Women, Infants and Children program, which serves half the babies born in the U.S. by providing their mothers with parenting advice, breastfeeding support and food assistance," CBS reports.

President Biden set the table for the conference with a 40-page strategy for ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity by 2030. "The Biden administration is counting on a variety of private-sector partnerships to help fund and implement its ambitious goal of ending hunger in America by 2030," CBS reports. Two in the White House fact sheet mention rural areas:

"In the next two years, the National Grocers Association will expand access to full-service grocery stores – grocery stores that stock and sell fresh produce, meat, and dairy, in addition to processed and packaged goods – across the country. It will double the number of retailers offering SNAP online, prioritizing rural areas and areas with low food access, such as agricultural communities." NGA will also build a toolkit to support its members expanding full-service grocery stores into USDA-designated food deserts."

Also, "Over the next seven years, Tyson Foods will invest $255 million into anti-hunger charities to expand access to nutritious protein products, with a focus on rural and underserved areas. It will commit an additional $20 million to provide evidence-based nutrition learning programs for children and their families in the over 100 communities where Tyson operates."

The efforts' five main goals are: expand access to SNAP and electronic benefits transfer in summer; a law allowing Medicaid programs to pay for nutrition counseling, and food as medicine, with Medicare-funded meals tailored to meet medical needs; new packaging and standards to highlight healthy foods; expand the CDC’s physical activity and nutrition program to all states and territories, and create parks and places where people can work out; and provide funding for nutrition science and research.

For journalists, Ordway suggests background reading: "Food Insecurity and Food Deserts in the US: A Research Roundup and Explainer," by her service's senior editor for health, Naseem Miller. He summarizes several studies showing links between health and access to food. "Living in a food desert — a geographic area where there’s a dearth of supermarkets, food retailers or other sources of healthy, affordable food — is associated with higher health care costs and higher rates of chronic diseases," she notes.

Global grain stocks hit a decade low amid war, bad weather

Reuters graph, adapted by The Rural Blog; click on it to enlarge.

Global grain stocks are the lowest in a decade, and bad weather and the war in Ukraine are "heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations," reports Tom Polansek of Reuters.

Grain shipments from Ukraine "are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected," due to poor weather, Polansek reports. "The United States, the world's top corn producer, is now expected to harvest its smallest corn crop in three years. Drought also punished European harvests and is threatening South America's upcoming planting season."

When the 2022-23 crop year ends, Polansek writes, "The world's buffer stocks of corn will be enough for just 80 days' worth of consumption, down 28% from five years ago and the lowest level since 2010-11, according to figures compiled for Reuters by the International Grains Council, an intergovernmental organization. That would be fewer days of corn stocks than the world had in 2012, when the last global food crisis spurred riots. Policymakers are worried."

Polasek cites South Dakota corn grower Mark Gross, who "expects to harvest as few as 20 bushels per acre on some fields this autumn, down more than 80% from the local average last year, after drought and fierce winds ravaged his land. Gross said the weather remained too dry in the spring and then two derecho windstorms brought destructive 100-mile-per-hourgusts across fields in Hutchinson County and southeastern parts of the state."

"It's lining up to be like 2012," Gross said. "No one wants to admit it, but it's true."

Children in the food deserts of the Black Belt in Alabama are 'still being forgotten,' researcher says

Children in the food deserts of Black Belt in Alabama are "still being forgotten," Brandan Renfroe, who researched food insecurity at University of West Alabama, tells AL.com. Renfroe surveyed 742 students in 16 Black Belt high schools and "found that a quarter of the students self-reported as experiencing food insecurity, with about 9% facing very low food security, meaning food has run out and they’ve gone a day or more without eating, far exceeding the national average," Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reports.

The story begins with this example: "Angela Pettway drives 90 miles round trip to the grocery store almost every day. Food runs out quickly in her rural Alabama household. She homeschools two of her children and feeds them all three meals. She also helps care for her dad. More and more recently, neighbors have been coming over to ask if she has any food to spare."

The Black Belt was named "for the dark, fertile soil that made this region of Alabama a hub of cotton production and therefore slavery, with one of the highest concentrations of enslaved Black folks in the South," Tryens-Fernandes notes. "Today, the name refers to the majority Black population that live there, people who can mostly still trace their ancestors back to the plantations. But over the past century, local food production has decreased, with many farmers aging out of the profession, being priced out, or affected by severe soil erosion."

Tryens-Fernandes, a Report for America reporting fellow, examines various food programs in the region. It's a good example of how to report on a problem that's big but may not be obvious.

Reports: Pandemic expansions of SNAP (food stamps) and child tax credit helped families' nutrition and well-being

"Temporary increases in federal aid during the Covid-19 pandemic had a 'highly positive impact on overall family well-being' and made it easier for low-income families to afford sufficient and healthy food, according to two reports released on Tuesday by Hunger Free America," Bridget Huber reports for Successful Farming. "But as these supports were gradually withdrawn, respondents reported skipping meals and struggling to feed their families." Rural families often struggle more when such expanded benefits are withdrawn.

The first report included the results of a survey of 800 low-income parents. Participants were asked how they were affected by temporary pandemic expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (often called food stamps). "More than 90 percent of respondents said the extra SNAP benefits helped them buy enough food and make more healthy, nutritious choices. More than three-quarters said they used the extra benefits to buy more fresh produce and that the extra grocery money freed up funds to spend on rent, transportation or childcare," Huber reports. "Eight in 10 also said they favored having SNAP benefits increased so that people could afford healthier food rather than prohibiting purchases of certain foods with SNAP."

Though the Child Tax Credit isn't a nutrition program, 83% of respondents said the expanded benefit—which expired at the end of 2021—helped them get enough food or healthier food. "Extra SNAP benefits — called emergency allotments — remain in place across much of the country, though at least a dozen Republican-led states have effectively opted out of them," Huber reports. Some respondents said losing the expanded benefits has caused them extreme stress, and some said they skip meals so their children can eat.

The second report recounts the results of 60 in-depth interviews with people who received federal aid such as SNAP or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) before and after the pandemic. "Respondents said that expanded SNAP benefits let them buy healthier food and also lasted longer into the month. Many respondents with children said the extra aid was 'a relief' that let them pay for basic needs more easily. But a lack of reliable transportation remained a major barrier to getting food, particularly for people living outside major metropolitan areas," Huber reports. "Despite the increase in aid, respondents reported visiting food banks and food pantries more often during the pandemic, with 55% more respondents accessing emergency food during the first year of the pandemic than previously."

Also, many college students did not realize that they qualified for SNAP, despite temporary changes that made it easier for them, Huber reports. Those who did get the extra benefits during the pandemic said the funds, which averaged about $250, were nearly enough to cover food expenses with careful budgeting. Many respondents said they felt stigmatized for using federal aid such as SNAP benefits, and that grocery or farmers' market employees often disrespected their privacy.

USDA household food security webinar set for Wed., Sept. 7

The Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service will host a free webinar on Wednesday, Sept. 7, to discuss its annual report on the prevalence and severity of household food security in the U.S. in 2021. The webinar will begin at 1 p.m. ET and will last about an hour.

From the website: "The report includes changes in food insecurity from previous years, the prevalence of food insecurity by selected household characteristics, and food insecurity among children. Food-insecure households are defined as having had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. Food-secure households are defined as having had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members."

Here's the report from 2020, and here's where the new report will appear when it's published.

More Americans are going hungry than last summer, due to inflation, but 16 states have ended pandemic food-aid boost

States in gray opted out. (Stateline map; click to enlarge.)

More Americans are going hungry than last summer because of soaring food prices, but at least 16 states are refusing extra federal money meant to help the hungry, who are disproportionately rural.

This July, food costs rose an average of 10.9 percent from the previous July, the biggest single-year jump since 1979, Molly Smith reports for Bloomberg. Eggs and grain-based foods saw some of the biggest increases, owing to the recent avian-flu epidemic that took out millions of laying hens and the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has stalled grain shipments. Overall food prices rose 1.14% from June to July, the highest month-over-month increase since April 2020.

In July, more than 15 million Americans sometimes went hungry because they couldn't afford food, and nearly 6 million often did, according to the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. In July 2021, nearly 12 million sometimes went hungry because they couldn't afford food and 3.6 million often did.

"Those numbers would have been higher if millions of families hadn’t received extra food aid through a pandemic-related expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps," Kristian Hernández reports for Stateline. "At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic . . . Congress temporarily increased SNAP benefits by raising all benefits by 15% and boosting every household to the maximum benefit allowed for its household size. In April 2021, the Biden administration bumped up the extra aid to a minimum of $95 for all households."

The 15% increase expired last September, but the maximum-benefit boost will continue as long as a state is still in a state of emergency or disaster due to the pandemic. "As of mid-July, 30 states had ended or allowed their health emergency orders to expire, but 18 of those states continued to qualify for emergency SNAP benefits because they are citing disaster declarations. According to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency website, every state has at least one active disaster declaration due to Covid-19," Hernández reports. "But at least 16 states now have opted out of providing the emergency allotments, with Republican leaders in some of those states arguing that the extra food aid and other pandemic-related help are contributing to worker shortages across the country."

Three-quarters of households getting SNAP benefits had at least one adult working in 2018, the most recent data available, "and some researchers have long argued that while Medicaid and other welfare programs might include disincentives to work, SNAP does not," Hernández reports, adding that even with the recent increases in benefits, recipients in over 20% of counties still couldn't afford three modest meals a day last fall—and that was before inflation sent food prices skyrocketing.

Georgia cut off the extra benefits in June; a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp said Georgians don't need it because of the strong economy and low unemployment rate. "But food banks across Georgia say they have seen an increase in clients since the emergency benefits were cut off," Hernández reports. "Danah Craft, executive director of Feeding Georgia, a network of food banks across the state, said food banks are so overwhelmed they are no longer able to feed people with their usual donations, forcing them to buy food instead." The CEO of another Georgia food bank nonprofit — one which serves mostly rural counties — said households reported getting an extra $89 per month in emergency benefits, but it's not helping much because of higher food prices, Hernández reports.

"I think some of these benefits are ending because there is an assumption that as we're emerging from the pandemic, that things have returned to normal," Craft told Hernández. "But the reality is that people are faring worse than they did pre-Covid."