The USDA studied communities with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. They found that a relatively small percentage of households lack access to a supermarket or large grocery store: 2.3 million households in the United States (2.2%) live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle.
Recent Posts
Category: Food security
Statistics recently published by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank reveal that the demand for emergency food assistance continues to increase, up 31 percent in the past year.
After increasing 145% from January 2000 to January 2009, the Michigan food assistance caseload continued to increase through May 2009, with a total of 718,277 cases. The table below shows the number of food assistance cases per county.
Research on US programs for the needy (i.e., welfare, unemployment, housing assistance, Food Stamps and health insurance), published by the New York Times, reveals that as millions of people seek aid, they are finding a complex system that reaches some and rejects others.
The Food Assistance Landscape, recently released by the USDA, covers recent trends from the Food and Nutrition Service. It reports that the 11% increase in expenditures for food assistance programs in fiscal year 2008 was the largest percentage increase in 16 years. While SNAP accounts for 62% of spending, WIC was the fastest growing food assistance…
The USDA’s Economic Research Service has recently released an illustrated guide to research findings on nutrition assistance programs, food insecurity, food prices, food spending, global food security, healthy eating, agriculture, and more. Some of the graphs from the report are excerpted below.
This link opens a New York Times article on the effects of drought in California’s Central Valley.
This link opens a New York Times article on the rising demand for food bank assistance across the United States.
The Food Research and Action Center released a report on the national School Breakfast Program for the school year 2007-2008.
Although the growing number of children receiving free and reduced price lunches at school signals increasing levels of need as the nation faces an extended economic crisis, it also indicates that millions of children who may face food insecurity at home have access to meals at school.