New edition of Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat by Janet Poppendieck

Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat is a classic in the history of U.S. food policy, written by sociologist  Janet Poppendieck, focused on the connections between agricultural crisis and food programs for the poor in the Great Depression.

The new edition from the University of California Press, published this month, includes a foreword by Marion Nestle and a delightful new epilogue bringing the story up to date from the book's original publication in the 1980s to the present. And by "the present," I mean the book includes material as recent as the key January 2014 compromise over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provisions new Farm Bill. (In terms of the publishing mechanics, how is this even possible?).

I read the new manuscript last year at the request of the publisher (and recommended republication):

The book is well-written and detailed, making bureaucratic correspondence come alive as lively argument. It has an authoritative and believable voice, while still carrying passion for the plight of the poor and hungry. I knew this already from reading Poppendieck’s more recent books on the emergency food system and on school meals reform. The pig slaughter story will stick in my head permanently now. The use of archival material adds novelty, but the book serves well even digesting and interpreting known topics.

Immediately today I will add this book to my U.S. food policy syllabus and place an order request to my university library.

See for yourself

In a class session on hunger measurement each fall, I advise not relying on statistical measures alone.  These measures are important, but it also is valuable to "see for yourself," by visiting anti-hunger efforts on the ground, getting to know all neighborhoods in your community, participating in activities that involve people from diverse income backgrounds, and basically by living life in an unsheltered way.

Perhaps Betsy Comstock and Carolyn Pesheck were thinking of something similar when they decided to spend the first part of their retirement years working in at least one anti-hunger program in each of the 50 states.  I enjoyed meeting Betsy last week and hearing about this ambitious undertaking.

Food insecurity in the United States remains at record high levels

USDA reported today that about 17 million households (or 14.7% of all U.S. households) were food insecure in 2009.  This level equals the record high level set the previous year, in the midst of recession.

Washington Post coverage today discussed the role of the economy and federal food assistance programs in influencing food insecurity:

"It's a considerable reflection of what is going on in the economy," said Kevin Concannon, USDA under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services....  Concannon said he was somewhat hopeful since the number of families suffering from hunger and nutrition problems stabilized last year even though the population of unemployed Americans rose from 9 million in 2008 to 14 million in 2009.

He attributed the stabilization to successful outreach and enrollment of many of these families into USDA-funded food programs. Fifty-seven percent of the families in the survey are enrolled in one or more of these programs. And one in four households have at least one family member participating in an USDA feeding program, up from one in five just two years ago.

Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been increasing rapidly in the past two years.  Average monthly participation in this leading anti-hunger program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, was 33 million people in 2009, up more than 5 million from the preceding year.  However, increased SNAP participation itself reflects increased economic hardship and does not necessarily mean reduced food insecurity and hunger.  In the most recent USDA food insecurity report, the rate of household food insecurity was 55% among SNAP participants, but only 31% of low-income non-participants.

Because the annual USDA report no longer describes severe food insecurity as "food insecurity with hunger," the clearest national survey-based measure of hunger in the United States is the simple question about whether any adults in the household went hungry.  The estimates reported in appendix A of the new report indicate that 4.6% of U.S. households in 2009 experienced hunger in this sense, unchanged from the preceding year.

Ramadan fast

Muslims around the world are currently observing the month of Ramadan, during which adults keep a fast without food or drink during the day.  A web primer explains the purpose:

Fasting helps one to experience how a hungry person feels and what it is like to have an empty stomach. It teaches one to share the sufferings of the less fortunate. Muslims believe that fasting leads one to appreciate the bounties of Allah, which are usually taken for granted – until they are missed!

Throughout the day Muslims are encouraged to go out of their way to help the needy, both financially and emotionally. Some believe that a reward earned during this month is multiplied 70 times and more. For this reason, Ramadan is also known as the month of charity and generosity.

To a Muslim, fasting not only means abstaining from food, but also refraining from all vice and evils committed consciously or unconsciously. It is believed that if one volunteers to refrain from lawful foods and sex, they will be in a better position to avoid unlawful things and acts during the rest of the year.

During a year of my youth spent living in Bandung, Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic country, I never made it through a whole day of fasting without at least a snack or a little water.  In part, social roles for hosts and guests forced me to eat something to be polite, even with the host was keeping fast.  I was struck by the fasting practice of neighbors such as the becak (pedicab) driver and day laborers who hung out on the street corner by our house.  Any one of them, who at the time in the 1980s earned about $30 per month, could explain without any discernible irony that they kept the fast so that they might know what it is like to be poor and hungry. In the same vein, consider this month the fast being kept by people in Pakistan who are suffering from floods.

Last night, I took my two children to the community Iftar -- or evening meal after the fast -- hosted by the Islamic Center of Davis, CA.  Hundreds of people turned out for the call to prayer, a delicious meal, and a moving and lively sermon by Sheikh Alaa' El Bakry about "The Rights of Neighbors."  In one passage, he contemplated our modern lives, in which we think our neighbors are the like-minded people with whom we text and twitter.  Imagine our surprise, in a time of crisis, such as a house fire, when we find ourselves going next door for help from the person who is more literally our neighbor, but with whom we haven't ever tried to bridge differences and talk.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, and secular folk crowded in until the auditorium's long tables were filled and many ate standing along the walls.  There were warm greetings for ministers, rabbis, officials from the police and FBI, and local politicians.  One state legislator, who is Japanese American, reflected on the futility of ignoring the current climate of fear of Muslims, knowing and remembering that any community may have its turn in the crossfire.

Even many of the non-Muslims kept fast for the day, which gives a special appreciation for the Iftar.  I made it through the complete daily fast yesterday for the first time in my life.  My children, ages 8 and 10, chose to fast from noon until the evening dinner.  I am happy that they could participate in such an event.  Ramadan lasts this month until about September 10. 

Source: www.cuisineonline.pk (a Pakistani food site)

Food insecurity jumps to 14.6% of U.S. households, highest level since survey began

Following the post earlier today, here is the new report from USDA's Economic Research Service:

More American households had difficulty putting enough food on the table in 2008.

In 2008, 85 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year, but 14.6 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during that year, up from 11.1 percent in 2007.

This is the highest recorded prevalence rate of food insecurity since 1995 when the first national food security survey was conducted.

Report on U.S. household food insecurity and hunger expected today

The federal government's annual report on U.S. household food insecurity and hunger is expected to be published today at noon. The new statistics will estimate hardship in 2008, based on a national survey last December, which asked respondents about their experience in the preceding 12 months.

The report will be posted to the front page of USDA's Economic Research Service.

I have two suggestions for media coverage of this report today: (1) report the contrast between the official estimates and national objectives for hunger reduction, which were adopted during the 1990s, and (2) report the simple percentage of U.S. survey respondents who experienced hunger, based on a straightforward and eloquent single survey question found in the appendix to the annual report.

Taking cues from the report itself, press coverage in past years has focused on small year-to-year changes in the prevalence of household food insecurity. For example, last year's report showed that 11.1% of households were food insecure in 2007, up an insignificant 0.2 percentage points from the year before.

I hope today's press coverage focuses on a more meaningful contrast: each year's official estimate of food security has fallen further behind the planned improvements that the United States adopted in the 1990s as national objectives for 2010. The national objective in the Rome Declaration, and the Healthy People 2010 plan, was to reduce food insecurity by half. When the new report is published today, we can add another data point to the chart below.


The failure to reduce food insecurity in the United States provides an interesting backdrop to the new Rome food security summit in news reports today.

It is sometimes said that the federal government no longer reports an official measure of "hunger." Beginning with the 2005 report, the federal government changed the name of the classification formerly known as "food insecurity with hunger," and now labels this category "very low food security."

However, I have always appreciated the question in the annual survey, which asks whether the survey respondent was hungry but didn't eat because he or she couldn't afford food. In recent years, this statistic has been reported in appendix Table A-1 of the annual report. In contrast with many of the complex statistics cited in the academic literature on food security measurement, this simple hunger count speaks most clearly about the prevalence of hunger in America. In 2007, the respondent reported such hunger in 3.3% of U.S. households.

Inflation-adjusted food spending fell, and food insecurity worsened, for low-income households in 2000-2007

A USDA report this week suggested that U.S. families spent less on food as their housing costs increased from 2000 to 2007, leading to increased risk of food insecurity.

The report by USDA's Economic Research Service said that inflation-adjusted median food spending fell by 6 percent from 2000 to 2007. Meanwhile, ERS said, the national prevalence of very low food security (the condition formerly called "household food insecurity with hunger") increased from 3.1 percent of households in 2000 to 4.1 percent of households in 2007.

In other words, people were spending less in real inflation-adjusted terms, and they were experiencing higher rates of food-related hardship.

When I first read this study, I wondered if ERS was correct to imply a connection between these two trends. The report's author, Mark Nord, strengthens the argument by disaggregating the data according to income strata. It turns out that the second-poorest fifth of households experienced both the greatest fall in food spending and the greatest increase in food-related hardship.

Moreover, the food spending and food insecurity trends were connected in a plausible way to overall spending trends: "The declines in food spending by middle- and low-income households were accompanied by increases in spending for housing and, in the two lowest income quintiles, by declines in income and total spending."

Still, one should resist the temptation to think of food insecurity as primarily a problem of low average food spending. The food security survey that is used for classification asks households about their experience of particular hardship events, such as skipping meals or going a whole day without food, in the preceding 12 months. If a family runs out of food occasionally, it can seem to have adequate average food spending, but still experience food insecurity. Participation in the SNAP (food stamp) program seems to be associated with higher food spending, holding other factors constant, but associated also with higher rates of food insecurity (presumably because people with greater needs for food are more likely to take the trouble to participate). It is not clear whether increased average food spending is itself a cure for food insecurity.

The meaning of hunger in U.S. surveys

"What should the government mean by hunger?"

Mark Nord and two colleagues ask this interesting question in a recent issue of the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.

A telephone survey of 1000 people offered respondents several scenarios, describing hypothetical people with symptoms of hunger to varying degrees.

The median perception of the least severe condition appropriately described as hunger is that people “. . . sometimes could not afford to eat enough. They did not feel weak or dizzy, but they did have stomach pains. However, there was not a narrow consensus on the appropriate use of the term hunger....”

The authors suggested that many respondents describe hunger in a way that seems fairly close to the federal government's intended meaning for the term "food insecurity with hunger." Federal reports on food insecurity discontinued using the term hunger in this way a couple years ago, although one can still find interesting tabulations of a survey question about hunger deep in the appendices.

Organic agriculture: an approach to African food security

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development released a policy brief stating that organic agriculture could boost African food security. The brief begins:

“the way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse”.

It is often argued that Africa needs to follow the agro-industrial “Green Revolution” model implemented in many parts of Asia and Latin America in previous decades. Using strains of crops that required agrochemical fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation, these methods increased yields. But they also damaged the environment, caused dramatic loss of agrobiodiversity and associated traditional knowledge, favoured wealthier farmers and left some poorer ones deeper in debt.

This can not be sustainable in Africa, a continent that imports 90 per cent of its agrochemicals, which most of the smallscale farmers cannot afford. It will increase dependencies on foreign inputs (agrochemical and seeds of protected plant varieties) and foreign aid. Africa should build on its strengths – its land, local resources, indigenous plant varieties, indigenous knowledge, biologically diverse smallholder farms and limited use (to date) of agrochemicals. It is time for the African Sustainable Green Revolution – to increase agricultural productivity by using sustainable agricultural practices that minimize harm to the environment and build soil fertility.

The brief defines 'organic agriculture' as "a holistic production system based on active agroecosystem management rather than on external inputs. It builds on traditional agriculture and utilizes both traditional and scientific knowledge. It is a form of sustainable or ecological agriculture that involves production according to precise standards."

I know some big agro-companies that won't be too thrilled about this brief, especially to hear the research (that has obviously not been funded by them):

"research shows that organic agriculture is a good option for food security in Africa – equal or better than most conventional systems and more likely to be sustainable in the longer term. The study’s analysis of 114 cases in Africa revealed that a conversion of farms to organic or near-organic production methods increased agricultural productivity of 116 per cent. Moreover, a shift towards organic production systems has enduring impact, as it builds up levels of natural, human, social, financial and physical capital in farming communities."

The brief does not avoid the challenges facing African agriculture. Building production capacities, market access (against a buy local movement), lack of government support for alternative methods, expensive certification processes, and lack of research and awareness are all major noted hurdles.

A few of their recommendations, according to the UNCTAD–UNEP Best Practices for Organic Policy: What Developing Country Governments Can Do to Promote the Organic Agriculture Sector include:

• Setting sustainable agriculture as a priority;
• Assessing current policies and programmes, and remove disincentives to sustainable/ecological/organic agriculture – for example, subsidies on agrochemicals;
• Training extension workers in sustainable agricultural practices;
• Encouraging farmer-to-farmer exchanges;
• Compiling and disseminating indigenous agricultural knowledge and varieties;
• Funding research on sustainable agriculture, building on indigenous knowledge in response and in partnership with farmers; and
• Promoting development of local and regional markets for organic products.

The international community should;
• Reverse the decline in development aid to African agriculture
• Increase support to African sustainable agriculture;
• Reduce organic market entry barriers, including by recognizing African standards such as the East African Organic Products Standard.
• Explore schemes to make payments to smallholder organic farmers in Africa for carbon sequestration and ecosystem services.

Cross posted from Epicurean Ideal.