Hunger
World Summit on Food Security Set to Disappoint
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Today begins the World Summit on Food Security, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and scheduled to run through Wednesday in Rome, Italy.
The FAO estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished in 2009, and with a world population set to reach 9 billion by 2050, the ranks of the hungry are sure to balloon unless aggressive action is taken on an international level.
Reuters reports, however, that the summit's progress will be no more than a token; there will be no deadlines or commitments to action despite the FAO's hope of gaining pledges of $44 billion a year from world leaders to help poor countries grow enough food. A draft of the declaration, Reuters says, includes a vague promise to fund more agricultural development with no specific commitments toward ending hunger.
Global Warming's Evil Twin: Agricultural Land Use
Published November 06, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
The world is stuck on the tracks and there are trains coming in both directions. One headlight represents climate change. The other light is us, a booming global population that needs more and more food every year. One train demands that we preserve our forests, the other that we slash and burn them. One demands that we decrease pollution, the other that we add more and more fossil fuels to our soil.
At least unless we change things -- a lot of things -- very drastically. We are already yanking on the brake of the climate train, though not nearly hard enough. The other train, though, is barreling forward unfettered. Few of us realize the train is being driven by a madman. Few of us realize the massive crisis our global society's inattention to agricultural priorities promises to become unless something is done.
The problem, according to a new essay by Jonathan Foley, professor and director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, is that we will need to double or even triple our agricultural output over the next several decades unless we want a whole heck of a lot of starving people on our hands. But we have to do that without completely destroying our environment.
In Response to "The Omnivore's Delusion" Part 1
Published August 17, 2009 @ 09:34AM PT
(This post is the first in a two-part response to "The Omnivore's Delusion" article written by Blake Hurst, a self-admitted "industrial" farmer from Missouri, a few weeks back for The Journal of American Enterprise Institute.)
More than simply being a piece praising modern technology and the rise of industrial agriculture, "The Omnivore's Delusion" is a show of utter frustration toward those the author calls "Agri-intellectuals" and their constant indictments against anything that is not small-scale, local and organic.
Although I don't agree with everything Hurst says (like his assertion that sustainable food advocates are decidedly anti-technology), I certainly understand and empathize with where he's coming from.
But what I think neither Hurst nor the "Agri-intellectuals" understand is that we have two distinct agricultural systems in the United States, and we need both of them equally.
Those of us involved in the sustainable food movement are drawn to the cause, largely, because we reject the idea that food should be an untraceable commodity with nothing but a multi-million dollar corporation standing behind it. We like to view food as having (to steal some language from one of my favorite organizations) a face, a place and a taste.
If you really think about that, it's somewhat of a selfish goal. We are imposing our values onto the people who grow our food, largely without the knowledge of what it takes to actually get that food onto our plates. Thankfully, there are an increasing number of farmers who share our food values and choose to grow either organically or sustainably, and almost exclusively for local markets. But we must understand that, for farmers like Hurst, this is neither a practical nor desirable opportunity.
Ending Childhood Hunger by 2015
Published July 01, 2009 @ 01:50PM PT
Guest editorial by Jim Weill, FRAC president
It’s always shocking to hear how many Americans can’t afford enough healthy food to get through the month – 36.2 million people live in such households at last count – but it’s especially troubling when you consider how many of the hungry are children. More than 12 million children – nearly 17 percent of all children in the country – live in homes that are struggling with hunger, hindering them from growing, learning and succeeding in school.
During the presidential campaign, President Obama pledged to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. It’s an ambitious pledge and one that he’s clearly standing behind. According to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the president instructed him that “what I want you to do first, the most important thing in this job, is to make sure America’s kids are well fed.”
As a nation we have only six years to reach this goal of ending childhood hunger and it will not be easy. But the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) has described the essential strategies needed to make the 2015 pledge a reality. They are the measures required if we’re serious about ending the scandal of childhood hunger in the U.S. and bolstering the health and futures of our children.
Sustainability and Hunger
Published June 16, 2009 @ 01:06PM PT
There are things people need to understand about hunger, courtesy of Food First:
... Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs - enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most "hungry countries" have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products. ...
So remember this: we have enough food in the world to make everyone fat. Everyone.
This is a distribution problem, a social justice problem, a profit-sharing problem, an employment security problem, a land access problem ... but there's an abundance of food in the world. The people flogging scarcity and crop yields as our biggest obstacles to feeding the world are at best misinformed, at worst, deliberately lying for personal or political gain.
In the case of politicians, those of them who are generally progressive, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they've been misled by hyper-slick lobbyists who make a convincing case that their corporations are doing good and really care about the public interest. The large food corporations have even bought out much of the anti-hunger lobby in the US, donating to their causes and sponsoring their DC publicity events, all for the sake of preventing anyone from looking too closely at how their management of food distribution channels actively promotes hunger.
It works really well.
Consider Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent call for support to 'sustainable agriculture'. She outlines seven principles, elaborated here, likely without realizing that the implications of the first, as commonly implemented, can readily undermine the third:
Expanding Food Stamps In DC
Published June 15, 2009 @ 03:10PM PT
[Greg Bloom, of DC's Bread for the City, is guest-blogging here with a summary of reporting done on Bread for the City's blog, Beyond Bread.]
A new wave of food stamps is flooding into Washington, DC. And we sure do need it.
Even before the recession, almost a fifth of DC’s residents were living below the federal poverty line. DC also suffers from the urban food infrastructure problems often discussed here – like vast food deserts that leave entire communities without access to fresh, nutritious produce. As a result, some of our nation's worst food insecurity is found right here in the capitol.
And yet, DC also has one of the country’s highest levels of participation in the food stamp benefits program (now known as SNAP). Readers of this blog won’t be surprised to hear that food stamps aren't sufficient to ensure food security: the cost of living – and the swiftly rising cost of food in particular – just doesn’t match up to the meager levels of SNAP assistance. (Here at Bread for the City, we typically hear from our clients that their food stamps run out by the third week of the month.)
But you'll be encouraged to hear that steps are being taken in the right direction. This month, DC City Council passed legislation that will expand the breadth and scale of food stamp assistance in the District.
The legislation does a few different things, all fairly technical (you have been warned!):
The Farmers Market Challenge
Published June 02, 2009 @ 02:02PM PT
Julie Flynn of the On Food Stamps blog was kind enough to send in this guest editorial. Enjoy!
For the past three weeks I have been living on a $31 per week food budget as a vegan in an effort to explore the challenges low income Americans face in the quest for healthful, sustainable, and affordable food. I have found that the only real source of organic or local produce in the low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles is the Farmer’s Markets.
When I began this project, I was glad to see that there were indeed Farmer’s Markets in neighborhoods like Watts and South Central, even if the markets were relatively small. I was even happier to see that these Farmer’s Markets had large signs announcing that they gladly accepted EBT/Food Stamp benefits. (I am only shopping at places that accept food stamps.) I had some real success acquiring local, pesticide free produce within my budget at these Farmer’s Markets, but it was by no means a perfect shopping experience.
As this month long project has progressed, I have actually found that going to Farmer’s Markets for my food isn’t all that easy, and it can actually be a pain. Apparently, I am not alone.
According to the California Association of Foodbanks and the California Department of Social Services, the percentage of all food benefits spent at farmers’ markets in California in 2008 was 0.0197%. The percentage of benefits spent at Farmer’s Markets for the first four months of 2009 is 0.0227%.
If these markets are centrally located in low-income neighborhoods, and they accept food stamps, why isn’t anyone going to them?
As someone who is living on a very tight food budget, I can tell you that the way our food system is set up, shopping at a Farmer’s Market simply isn’t worth it for me.
