EU considering massive cuts to food aid for poor, By Raf Casert (AP), October 14, 2011, ABC News: “The European Union is considering a roughly 75 percent cut in funding for a program that helps feed 18 million of its poorest citizens. The cuts, set to take effect after New Year’s, would come at a time of rising unemployment and consumer food prices in many parts of Europe, as well as overall economic turmoil on the continent. The looming cuts already have raised fears among people who rely heavily on the program…”

Tennessee boomers face growing threat of hunger, By Stephanie Toone, September 11, 2011, The Tennessean: “Therese Marrs has learned the art of stretching a link of smoked sausage, a jar of cheese and a box of macaroni into three meals every week. The 56-year-old Smyrna mother struggles to make the meals come together for her husband and 16-year-old daughter each week, since she was laid off from her quality assurance job at a factory in February. She spends almost every day looking for jobs, but she fears the worst once her unemployment benefits run out in a few months. ‘I’ve learned how to cut my meals. My food stamps only stretch about three weeks, so the food bank helps,’ Marrs said. ‘I’ve been working in factories since I was 15, but I can’t seem to get anybody to hire me.’ Marrs is among the 1 in 6 Tennesseans and 15.6 million older adults who face the threat of hunger as a result of a lingering weak economy in America, according to a recently released AARP report, ‘Food Insecurity Among Older Adults…’”

• USDA: Increased food aid kept hunger rate steady, By Pam Fessler, September 7, 2011, National Public Radio: “Despite the bad economy, the number of Americans who struggled to get enough to eat did not grow last year, and in some cases declined, according to new government data. Still, a near-record number - almost 49 million people - were affected. Federal officials say an increase in government food aid kept the numbers from going even higher. According to the new data from the Department of Agriculture, about 17.2 million households last year had trouble putting food on the table - what it calls ‘food insecure.’ And more than a third of those households had members who went hungry at some point during the year because they couldn’t afford enough to eat…”
• 1 in 10 Minnesota households struggles with hunger, USDA report says, By Julie Siple, September 7, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “A new report released Wednesday by the United States Department of Agriculture shows one in ten Minnesotan households doesn’t always have access to enough food for a healthy lifestyle. The numbers are part of an annual survey conducted for the United States Department of Agriculture. Every December, U.S. Census workers ask people all over the country a series of questions about food. They’re counting how many people lack consistent access to enough food. It’s the closest thing to an official hunger count. The report says 14.5 percent of American households are food insecure - close to 49 million people. But in a conference call this morning, USDA Undersecretary Kevin Concannon pointed out the good news…”
• In Texas, 18 percent are facing hunger, By Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje, September 8, 2011, San Antonio Express-News: “According to a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas ranks second in the nation in the percentage of people struggling with ‘food insecurity,’ a term that refers to households where members have difficulty meeting their food needs. In 2010, more than 4 million Texans - 18 percent - either experienced hunger outright or altered their eating patterns to avoid hunger, such as buying less healthy but more filling food. Only Mississippi had a worse rating. On the heels of the national report, a Texas group released a study that reveals the level of food insecurity among Texas’ 254 counties, using the newest data…”

• Hunger grips Pa.’s First District, report finds, By Alfred Lubrano, August 12, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “A new report that astonished even experts on hunger shows that half of all households with children in Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District can’t always afford to buy enough food. The district - which includes Kensington, parts of North and South Philadelphia, and Chester - is the second-hungriest place for families in the United States, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the leading antihunger nonprofit in the nation. The report seems to establish Philadelphia as a locus of American poverty. With an overall poverty rate of 25 percent, Philadelphia is the poorest big city (population over one million) in the country. And the FRAC report shows that high levels of hunger are very much a part of life here…”
• Hunger an issue for 25 percent of N.Y. families with kids, By Cara Matthews, August 11, 2011, Ithaca Journal: “Nearly 25 percent of New York households with children reported in 2009 and 2010 that they didn’t always have enough money to buy food, according to a national Food Research and Action Center report released Thursday. The study found that 23.4 percent of families with children nationwide and 23.3 percent in New York said they had experienced food hardship at times during the past 12 months - meaning they at times could not afford food for the adults or children in the household. The rate was 14.6 percent for households without children. New York ranked 29th among all states in the analysis by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group. It was one of 41 states with rates between 20 percent and 29.9 percent. Three states are 30 percent or higher - Mississippi (32.5 percent), Alabama (32 percent) and Florida (30 percent)…”
• Florida fourth in nation for ‘food hardship,’ group says, By Catherine Whittenburg, August 12, 2011, Tampa Tribune: “Nearly one out of three Florida families, and 27 percent of those in the Tampa-Bay area, are struggling to put enough food on their tables, according to a new study released on Thursday. Florida ranks fourth among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. for the rate at which its families were unable to afford enough food in 2010, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a national nonprofit group that advocates for government policies to end hunger…”

• UN declares Somalia famine in Bakool and Lower Shabelle, July 20, 2011, BBC News: “The United Nations has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as the region suffers the worst drought in more than half a century. The UN said the humanitarian situation in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle had deteriorated rapidly. It is the first time that the country has seen famine in 19 years. Meanwhile, the UN and US have said aid agencies need further safety guarantees from armed groups in Somalia to allow staff to reach those in need. Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access…”
• Somalis dying in world’s worst famine in 20 years, By Katharine Houreld (AP), July 20, 2011, Denver Post: “Tens of thousands of Somalis are feared dead in the world’s worst famine in a generation, the U.N. said Wednesday, and the U.S. said it will allow emergency funds to be spent in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants as long as the fighters do not interfere with aid distributions. Exhausted, rail-thin women are stumbling into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia with dead babies and bleeding feet, having left weaker family members behind along the way. ‘Somalia is facing its worst food security crisis in the last 20 years,’ said Mark Bowden, the U.N.’s top official in charge of humanitarian aid in Somalia. ‘This desperate situation requires urgent action to save lives … it’s likely that conditions will deteriorate further in six months.’ The crisis is the worst since 1991-92, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death, Bowden said…”

Food prices set to stay high, says UN food agency, June 7, 2011, BBC News: “Global food prices will remain high and volatile throughout this year and into next despite record food production. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) twice yearly Food Outlook analysis says rising demand will absorb most of the higher output. It says its index of food prices in May was at 232, only five points below February’s record high of 237. The FAO says higher food prices could mean poor countries will see food import costs rise by up to 30%. That would mean them spending 18% of their total import bills on food this year, compared with the world average of 7%. The organisation says the next few months will be critical in determining how major crops will fare this year…”

Study quantifies food insecurity - hunger - in the suburbs, By Alfred Lubrano, April 21, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Hunger quiets people, and there was almost no conversation among the 145 who gathered in an Upper Darby church parking lot, awaiting a charitable distribution of produce, on a recent wet spring morning. Breaking the silence, Juliana Noble said, ‘A lot of changes in my life brought me here today.’ The 50-year-old mother of a high school senior from Yeadon, Noble was laid off from her job as a course adviser at a Main Line college two years ago. She now works part-time at a clothing store, struggling to pay the mortgage and utilities. Fresh produce doesn’t fit in her budget, so she shows up at Christ Lutheran Church for the bananas, potatoes, lettuce, and other food in the weekly Fresh for All distribution by Philabundance, the hunger-relief agency…”

• Next meal elusive for hundreds of thousands of needy in D.C. area, By Annie Gowan, March 24, 2011, Washington Post: “More than 400,000 Washington area residents experienced periods of hunger and empty cupboards during the recession, including tens of thousands living in some of the country’s most affluent counties, according to a new study released Thursday. The study, “Map the Meal Gap,” used Agriculture Department, 2010 Census and unemployment data for a sweeping county-by-county portrait of hunger in America, from unemployed timber workers in the South to more than 1.7 million residents in Los Angeles with high unemployment and housing costs…”
• Millions of Americans can’t always afford food, By Kim Carollo, March 24, 2011, ABC News: “While many people may not think much about grabbing a bite to eat, for millions of Americans, it’s been a lot harder. A new report shows about 50 million people aren’t always sure how they’re going to afford their next meal. According to the Map the Meal Gap report by the hunger relief charity Feeding America, about 15 percent of American households experienced “food insecurity” at some time during 2009, or believed they didn’t have enough or couldn’t get enough money for food. The report uses food insecurity data gathered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The report provides food insecurity rates for every county and congressional district in the country and also analyzes each county’s population to determine whether people are eligible for federal nutrition assistance programs…”
• Study: Tens of thousands have too little food, By Julie Wurth, March 24, 2011, Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette: “A new national hunger study says 79,000 people in East Central Illinois don’t have enough to eat — and more than half of them may not qualify for federal food assistance. About 15.5 percent of the 508,000 people in the 14-county region served by the Eastern Illinois Foodbank are classified as ‘food insecure,’ unable to get enough food on a regular basis, according to a study released Thursday by Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization. The study, called “Map the Meal Gap,” provides numbers for the first time about food insecurity for each county and congressional district. Previously, that data was only available on a state-by-state basis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, officials said…”
• Study: Minnesotans miss 100 million meals each year, By Julie Siple, March 25, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “A study released this week by the hunger relief organization Feeding America estimates that Minnesotans struggling with hunger collectively miss almost 100 million meals each year. The study says, nationwide, hungry people would need $21.3 billion to fill the gap in their food budgets. Work in Minnesota inspired the study. Rob Zeaske and his colleagues at Second Harvest Heartland food bank were looking for a better way to understand who needs help. ‘Traditionally we’ve measured hunger by who comes in for help, by who comes into a food shelf or who comes into a soup kitchen,’ Zeaske said. ‘The attempt was - how do we make a better estimate of who’s out there needing assistance, and how badly, but might not be getting help?’ Feeding America ran with that idea. The national study they released Thursday does two things that hadn’t been done before. It estimates the number of people struggling with hunger in each U.S. county. And it puts a number on how many meals people are missing…”

400,000 rely on food banks each month in Ontario, By Laurie Monsebraaten, March 22, 2011, Toronto Star: “Hunger is a daily reality for Mike Crawford, 56, as he treks across downtown Toronto in search of soup kitchens between monthly visits to a local food bank. Crawford, who tumbled onto welfare after a nervous breakdown a decade ago, is among more than 400,000 Ontarians - or 3 per cent of the province’s population - who are forced to turn to food banks every month, according to a new report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks. Food bank use has grown by an unprecedented 28 per cent since the recession in 2008, making Ontario the third highest user of food bank services in Canada behind Newfoundland and Manitoba, says the report released Tuesday…”

• Health of 400,000 ‘nearly homeless’ Canadians similar to those on the street: study, By Heather Scoffield, November 19, 2010, Globe and Mail: “Hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are just one step away from being homeless are dealing with the same devastating health risks as people living on the streets, according to new research. Mental illness, hunger and chronic health issues such as arthritis and hepatitis are just as prevalent among the ‘vulnerably housed’ as among the homeless, research by a network of academics, doctors and community workers suggests. Their investigation in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa suggests that for every person sleeping on the street, there are 23 more who are at risk of becoming homeless - living in unaffordable, crowded and unsafe conditions…”
• Too many Canadians on brink of being homeless: Doctor, By Nicki Thomas, November 19, 2010, Toronto Star: “For every person sleeping in a shelter bed, there are 23 households on the verge of homelessness, according to a dire report released Friday. These ‘vulnerably housed’ Canadians are spending more than 50 per cent of their monthly income on rent in crowded and unsafe housing. And many face the same myriad health problems as those with no home at all, states the report that calls for a national strategy to address the housing crisis. Dr. Stephen Hwang, the Toronto doctor who authored the report, called the country’s lack of a national housing strategy ‘deplorable.’ ‘Housing is just as essential to the health of Canadians as nutritious food, clean air and fresh water and access to medical care,’ said Hwang, a physician with the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital. ‘If we ensure that people have their basic housing needs met, we would actually be making an investment in the health of our population.’ Earlier this week, a parliamentary committee released a report on poverty that also recommended a long-term national strategy on homelessness and housing…”

• Record number of U.S. households face hunger, By Pam Fessler, November 15, 2010, National Public Radio: “The number of Americans who struggled to get enough food last year remained at a record high, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More than 50 million Americans lived in households that had a hard time getting enough to eat at least at some point during 2009. That includes 17 million children, and at least a half-million of those children faced the direst conditions. They had inadequate diets, or even missed meals, because their families didn’t have enough money for food. ‘Household food insecurity remains a serious problem across the United States,’ says Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon. He says there’s a reason the hunger numbers hit a record high in 2008 and stayed there in 2009: a struggling economy…”
• Rise in U.S. hunger slows, but remains high, By Tony Pugh, November 15, 2010, Kansas City Star: “U.S. agriculture officials said Monday that the nation’s 15 federal nutrition programs helped keep hunger in check in 2009 even as the number of unemployed Americans soared. After a record one-year increase from 2007 to 2008, the number of U.S. households facing food shortages increased only slightly last year to roughly 17.4 million, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The share of households with members who went hungry or cut their food intake because of money also held steady in 2009, albeit at the highest levels since the data were first collected in 1995…”
• 17.4 million U.S. families went hungry at some point in 2009, USDA says, By P.J. Huffstutter, November 15, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “About 15% of U.S. households - 17.4 million families - lacked enough money to feed themselves at some point last year, according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture report. Released Monday, the study also found that 6.8 million of these households - with as many as 1 million children - had ongoing financial problems that forced them to miss meals regularly. The number of these ‘food insecure’ homes, or households that had a tough time providing enough food for their members, stayed somewhat steady from 2008 to 2009. But that number was more than triple compared with 2006, before the recession brought double-digit unemployment…”

• Hunger in Philadelphia: The safety net is torn, By Alfred Lubrano, November 5, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Myra Young fits a nebulizer mask over her son Todd’s face to beat back his chronic asthma. Inhaling vaporized medicine that keeps him breathing, the 4-year-old with large eyes leafs through a children’s Bible to pass the time. Young, 41, is an unemployed nursing assistant who lost her job in 2007 caring for Todd during his two-month hospitalization. She watches nervously as the whirring machine eats electricity. The power to Young’s two-bedroom rental in Kensington will be cut in two weeks because the bill has climbed to $770. She lives in the poorest place in Pennsylvania - the First Congressional District. According to a national poll, the district is the second-hungriest in America. Young, who is separated, is not without help. She receives monthly welfare payments of $205, along with $362 in food stamps, and $674 in Supplemental Security Income for Todd’s illness - part of the safety net meant to aid the poor. Young’s husband, a hotel kitchen worker, chips in as well. But all that help still keeps mother and son stuck at the poverty level - not nearly enough to pay the $625 rent, and feed Young’s hungry child and his voracious breathing machine. Because Young hasn’t worked since Todd’s hospitalization, it’s harder for her to get jobs; employers are wary of her two years away from nursing…”
• Inquirer Editorial: We are what we eat, Editorial, November 5, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Hunger isn’t confined to a single zip code. But there are few places where its impact is more evident than within this city’s First Congressional District, rated the second-hungriest in America. Inquirer reporter Alfred Lubrano recently detailed how that hunger, rooted in poverty, can paradoxically lead to obesity. Many among the poor are overweight not from eating too much, but because they eat the wrong foods…”

• More predicted to receive food aid after rule change, By Tom Robertson, November 1, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “Beginning Monday, tens of thousands more Minnesotans will qualify for food assistance, when new guidelines go into place for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — what we used to call food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has increased the income eligibility for food support. A family of four with a gross monthly income of roughly $3,000 or less now qualifies. County social service agencies across the state are gearing up for a potential flood of families seeking help. The Minnesota Department of Human Services anticipates the change will increase the food support caseload by about 16,000 cases per year, impacting an additional 34,000 people annually. In Minnesota, the federal program is known as the Food Support Program. As of May of this year, some 425,000 Minnesotans were receiving food support each month…”
• When poverty means hunger for the right food, By Alfred Lubrano, October 31, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Mold grows thick and black on the walls of Celeata Bailey’s Norris Square bedroom. Because most of the ceiling is missing, Bailey, 21, gets soaked in bed when it rains. Her family puts up duct tape to keep the bathroom wall from collapsing. Raw sewage burbles in the basement, and the family stores surgical masks in the kitchen for anyone who has to descend into its putrid depths. Bailey’s poverty is evident throughout the house, which sits in the First Congressional District, the second-hungriest in America, according to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, one of the largest polls ever taken. But poverty is also written on Bailey’s body, made heavy since childhood by a poor person’s diet of cheap, fattening, processed foods larded with high-fructose corn syrup, fat, and salt. As a result of her diet, Bailey has suffered from diabetes since she was 13. It is, doctors acknowledge, a paradox that hunger and obesity are linked. And doctors say obesity and diabetes among the poor are on the rise, as many families faced with hunger often have little choice but to eat nutritionally disastrous foods to survive…”

U.N. Millennium Development Goals appear out of reach in Africa, By Robyn Dixon, September 13, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Sub-Saharan Africa will not reduce poverty and hunger and improve child and maternal healthcare to meet the goals set a decade ago by the United Nations unless African and Western leaders do much more, several recent reports suggest. The main reasons: Donors have failed to keep pledges and many African nations have not improved their governments or increased health spending as promised. Only a handful of developed countries have met a pledge to increase foreign aid to 0.7% of their gross domestic product, while in some countries aid is declining. And only Rwanda, Tanzania and Liberia have met their pledge to spend 15% of their budgets on health, while in some African nations - Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and others - the proportion has fallen since 2000, according to a recent report out of Britain. The average spending on healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa remains less than 10% of GDP. The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by about 190 U.N. member countries in 2000 to tackle poverty, hunger, disease and early deaths in poor countries, with a series of targets set for 2015. The struggling efforts to meet those goals will be discussed at a three-day U.N. summit in New York beginning Monday…”

India asks, should food be a right for the poor?, By Jim Yardley, August 8, 2010, New York Times: “Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight. Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling through India’s social safety net. They should receive subsidized government food and cooking fuel. They do not. The older children should be enrolled in school and receiving a free daily lunch. They are not. And they are hardly alone: India’s eight poorest states have more people in poverty - an estimated 421 million - than Africa’s 26 poorest nations, one study recently reported. For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for people like Mr. Bhuria has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?..”

• Study: Effects of childhood hunger last for decades, By Alice Park, August 2, 2010, Time.com: “Going hungry is a major contributor to ill health, particularly among children, and now a new report reveals how long-lasting the damage can be. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the University of Calgary performed the first long-term study on the effects of hunger on general health, tracking children from birth to 21 years. Most studies to date have offered only snapshots of child health, assessing the short-term impact of hunger over a given period of time. In the new analysis, the scientists found that children who went hungry at least once in their lifetimes were two-and-a-half times more likely to have poor overall health 10 to 15 years later, compared with those who never had to go without food…”
• Lack of food puts kids at risk for asthma, other chronic ills, August 3, 2010, BusinessWeek: “Children and youth who don’t have enough to eat are at increased risk of poor health, and repeated episodes of hunger may put them at risk for chronic diseases such as asthma, researchers say. The finding is from an analysis of data from a Canadian survey of 5,809 children aged 10 to 15 years and 3,333 youth aged 16 to 21 years, which was conducted from 1994 to 2004-2005. During that time, 3.3 percent of children and 3.9 percent of youth experienced hunger at some point and 1.1 percent of children and 1.4 percent of youth went hungry on two or more occasions, the study found…”

• Crisis deepens Middle East poverty, says report, By Deena Kamel Yousef, June 24, 2010, Gulf News: “Significant parts of the Middle East are experiencing an increase in extreme poverty as the global economic slowdown increased unemployment and hunger spikes in the region, according to the 2010 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report released Wednesday. About 6 per cent of people in the region lived on less than $1.25 a day in 2005 compared to 2 per cent in 1990. The global economic and financial crisis, which began in the advanced economies of North America and Europe in 2007, sparked abrupt declines in exports and commodity prices and reduced trade and investment, slowing growth in developing countries, the report said…”
• Millenium Development Goals hit by crisis but still achievable, UN says, By Uwe Hessler, June 23, 2010, Deutsche Welle: “The United Nations published its 2010 Millenium Development Goals Report simultaneously in New York, Paris and Berlin on Wednesday. The food crisis of 2008 as well as the 2009 economic crisis ‘didn’t stop progress’ in reaching the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the report said, but had made the prime goal of halving global poverty by 2015 ‘more difficult to achieve.’ The number of people in the world living on less than the $1.25 (1.05 euros) per day global poverty line had substantially decreased from 46 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2005 - the latest available figure on global hunger given in the report…”
• Fiscal crisis slows U.N. poverty fight, By Edith M. Lederer (AP), June 24, 2010, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “The global economic crisis has slowed the fight against poverty but the developing world is still on track to meet a key U.N. goal of halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015, according to a report released Wednesday. The U.N. report cited new World Bank estimates suggesting that the crisis left an additional 50 million people in extreme poverty in 2009 and will leave 64 million impoverished by the end of 2010, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and eastern and southeastern Asia. Hunger may also have spiked in 2009 - with more than 1 billion people undernourished - as a consequence of the global food and financial crises. The effects of the crises are likely to persist with poverty rates slightly higher than they would have been had the world economy grown steadily at its pre-crisis pace, the U.N. said…”

U.N. food price index increases 22 percent, Associated Press, June 7, 2010, The Oklahoman: “Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to give up eating meat, fruit and even tomatoes. Scraping to afford the next meal is still a grim daily reality in the developing world even though the global food crisis that dominated headlines in 2008 quickly faded in the U.S. and other rich countries…”

Millions face hunger in arid belt of Africa, By Jon Gambrell (AP), May 28, 2010, Modesto Bee: ” At this time of year, the Gadabeji Reserve should be refuge for the nomadic tribes who travel across a moonscape on the edge of the Sahara to graze their cattle. But the grass is meager after a drought killed off the last year’s crops. Now the cattle are too weak to stand and too skinny to sell, leaving the poor without any way to buy grain to feed their families. The threat of famine is again stalking the Sahel, a band of semiarid land stretching across Africa south of the Sahara. The U.N. World Food Program warned on Friday that some 10 million people face hunger over the next three months before the next harvest in September - if it comes…”

The obesity-hunger paradox, By Sam Dolnick, March 12, 2010, New York Times: “When most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk. Once, maybe. But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat. Call it the Bronx Paradox. ‘Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,’ said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. ‘Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.’ The Bronx has the city’s highest rate of obesity, with residents facing an estimated 85 percent higher risk of being obese than people in Manhattan, according to Andrew G. Rundle, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University…”

• Families struggle to afford food, survey finds, By Jason DeParle, January 26, 2010, New York Times: “Nearly one in five Americans said they lacked the money to buy the food they needed at some point in the last year, according to a survey co-sponsored by the Gallup organization and released Tuesday by an anti-hunger group. The numbers soared at the start of the recession, but dipped in 2009 despite the continuing rise in unemployment. The anti-hunger group, the Food Research and Action Center, attributed that trend to falling food prices, an increasing use of food stamps and a rise in the amount of the food stamps benefit. More than 38 million Americans - one in eight - now receive food stamps, a record high…”
• Phila.-area district 2d-hungriest in U.S., study says, By Alfred Lubrano, January 26, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District - which includes Chester, South Philadelphia, and parts of North Philadelphia - is among the hungriest in the nation, according to a report released yesterday. The district, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, is second only to the 16th District in the Bronx, N.Y., for so-called ‘food hardship,’ as measured by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a national nonprofit in Washington whose aim is to eradicate hunger. FRAC defines food hardship as the lack of money to buy enough food to satisfy a family’s needs. Using data from a survey of more than 500,000 Americans between January 2008 and December 2009, FRAC learned that more than 36 percent of households in the First District answered ‘yes’ to the question, ‘Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?’…”
• Many need more cash for food, report says, By Rita Price, January 27, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “One of every five households in the Columbus metro area fell short of money to buy needed food at some point in the past year, according to a report based on daily Gallup surveys. The results, released yesterday by the Food Research and Action Center, put Columbus at No. 24 — worse than Cleveland and Cincinnati — in a ‘food hardship’ ranking of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Local anti-hunger groups say the numbers might not be as surprising as they seem. ‘Our food-pantry statistics track that,’ said Evelyn Behm, senior vice president at the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. ‘It goes along with the record increases we’ve seen in the past two years.’ Others say Columbus-area respondents might rank worse because they’re newer to such a struggle and trying to get by on their own before turning to emergency help…”

• Half of U.S. children will use food stamps, study finds, By Alfred Lubrano, November 18, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “In a stark and surprising finding, about half the children in the United States will be on food stamps at some point during their childhood, a new study of 29 years of data shows. One in three white children and 90 percent of all black children - ages 1 through 20 - will use the program, according to the research, published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. ‘This means Americans’ economic distress is much higher than we had ever realized,’ said Thomas A. Hirschl, a sociology professor at Cornell University and a coauthor of the study with Mark R. Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis. The survey finds that continued food-stamp usage signifies a kind of poverty that is ‘a threat to the overall health and well-being of American children, and, as such, represents a significant challenge to pediatricians in their daily practice.’ The persistent poverty described in the survey dovetails with the findings of a U.S. Department of Agriculture study released Monday. It determined that 49 million Americans - 17 million of them children - were unable to consistently get enough food to eat in 2008. Nearly 15 percent of households were having trouble finding food, the highest number recorded since the agency began measuring hunger in 1995…”
• Hunger in the United States, Editorial, November 17, 2009, New York Times: “Congress should make a priority of expanding federal nutrition programs that are aimed at helping millions of struggling families feed their children. The need to bolster these programs was underscored again this week in a dismaying Department of Agriculture study showing that a record number of households had trouble getting sufficient food at one time or another last year…”

• USDA: Hunger rises in U.S., By Alfred Lubrano, November 17, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “America is hungry and getting hungrier, with 49 million people - 17 million of them children - last year unable to consistently get enough food to eat, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These figures represent 14.6 percent of all households, a 3.5-percentage-point jump over 2007, and they are the largest recorded since the agency began measuring hunger in 1995. Of those 49 million, 12 million adults and 5.2 million children reported experiencing the country’s most severe hunger, possibly going days without eating. Among the children, nearly half a million in the developmentally critical years under age 6 were going hungry. That’s three times the number in 2006. The study documented both ‘low food security,’ which describes people unable to consistently get enough to eat, and ‘very low food security,’ in which people reported being hungry various times over the year but were unable to eat because there wasn’t enough money for food. The South reported the highest number of households in both categories, at 15.9 percent, followed by the West at 14.5 percent, the Midwest at 14 percent, and the Northeast at 12.8 percent…”
• Hungry U.S. households increased about 30% last year, By Tony Pugh, November 16, 2009, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The number of U.S. households that are struggling to feed their members jumped by 4 million to 17 million last year, as recession-driven job losses and increased poverty and unemployment fueled a surge in hunger, a government survey reported Monday. These ‘food insecure’ households represent about 49 million people and make up 14.6 percent, or more than one in seven, of all U.S. households. That’s the highest rate since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began monitoring the issue in 1995. Additionally, more than one-third of these struggling families — some 6.7 million households, or 17.2 million people last year — had ‘very low food security,’ in which food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted for some family members because of a lack of food…”

• Report: More Americans going hungry, By Amy Goldstein, November 16, 2009, Washington Post: “The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a federal report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children. In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children — more than one in five across the United States — were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million youngsters the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million…”
• Hunger in U.S. at a 14-year high, By Jason DeParle, November 16, 2009, New York Times: “The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls ‘food insecurity’ 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture reported Monday. The increase, of 13 million Americans, was much larger than even the most pessimistic observers of hunger trends had expected and cast an alarming light on the daily hardships caused by the recession’s punishing effect on jobs and wages. About a third of these struggling households had what the researchers called ‘very low food security,’ meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year…”
• More U.S. households report food shortages, By Scott Kilman, November 16, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that 17 million U.S. households experienced some sort of food shortage in 2008, up 31% from 13 million households in 2007. In 2008, a year marked by rising food costs and recession, the prevalence of ‘food insecurity’ in the U.S. soared to the highest levels in the history of the USDA’s national annual survey, which began in 1995. According to the survey, 14.6% of U.S. households experienced food insecurity at least some time during 2008, up from the 11.1% of U.S. households in 2007 that fell into the USDA’s definition of food insecure…”

• Poor nutrition ’stunting growth’, By Nick Triggle, November 11, 2009, BBC News: “Poor child nutrition still causes major problems in the developing world - despite some progress, experts say. A third of deaths in children under five in those countries are linked to poor diet, a report by Unicef suggests. It also reveals 195m children - one in three - have stunted growth, even though rates have fallen since 1990. Unicef said the number of underweight children also remained high, with many countries struggling to hit official targets to halve the figures. An estimated 129m children are underweight…”
• 200 million children under age 5 are starving, By Ariel David and Maria Cheng (AP), November 12, 2009, Halifax Chronicle Herald: “Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF Wednesday before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger. The head of a UN food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of a billion hungry people. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency’s headquarters starting Monday. The UN Children’s Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food…”

• Ethiopia appeals for international aid 25 years on, By Tom Pettifor, October 23, 2009, The Mirror: “It’s been a quarter of a century since the Ethiopian famine which shocked the world - and history could be about to repeat itself. The government of Ethiopia, a country in the grip of a five-year drought, yesterday asked the international community for emergency aid to feed 6.2 million. The request came at a meeting of donors to discuss the impact of the drought, affecting parts of East Africa. The UN’s World Food Programme said £173million will be needed in the next six months and some aid officials say the numbers of hungry could rise. But an Oxfam report to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1984 famine - Band Aids and Beyond - warns that drought will be the norm there for the next 25 years. And it called for a new approach to tackling the risk of disaster in the country…”
• Is U.S. food aid contributing to Africa’s hunger?, By Dana Hughes, October 29, 2009, ABC News: “Drought-stricken Ethiopia is pleading for food aid again to stave off starvation, but some critics are complaining that the policies of the country’s most generous donor, the United States, is exacerbating the cycle of starvation. A hungry Ethiopia gets 70 percent of its aid from the U.S., but according to a new report by the aid organization Oxfam International, that help comes at a cost. U.S. law requires that food aid money be spent on food grown in the U.S., at least half of it must be packed in the U.S. and most of it must be transported in U.S. ships. The Oxfam report, ‘Band Aids and Beyond,’ claims that is far more expensive and time consuming than buying food in the region…”
• Oxfam says Band-Aids insufficient, By Peter Goodspeed, October 23, 2009, National Post: “Twenty-five years after Ethiopia suffered a staggering famine that killed more than one million people, the world has done little to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. A new report by the international aid group Oxfam claims ‘the humanitarian response to drought and other disasters is still dominated by ‘Band-Aids,’ ‘ instead of finding ways to reduce the risks of recurring crisis…”

• Global hunger worsening, warns UN, October 14, 2009, BBC News: “Targets to cut the number of hungry people in the world will not be met without greater international effort, UN food agencies have warned. The UN’s annual report on global food security confirms that more than one billion people - a sixth of the world’s population - are undernourished. It says the number of hungry people was growing before the economic crisis, which has made the situation worse. The report comes ahead of World Food Day on Friday…”
• Feeding the world in years to come, By Nancy Greenleese, October 15, 2009, Deutche Welle: “By the year 2050, world population is likely to soar by more than 30 percent mainly in the developing world. There will be more mouths to feed but fewer farmers to grow the crops due to a mass exodus to urban areas. Those farmers are facing a bounty harvest of challenges: climate change, disappearing natural resources, spikes in food and energy prices. Putting foods in bowls, banana leafs or tin cups will therefore require ingenuity and support. As part of that quest, experts gathered in Rome earlier this week to brainstorm ways to feed the world in the next four decades…”
• UN: Record 1 billion go hungry, By Ariel David (AP), October 14, 2009, New York Times: “Parents in some of Africa’s poorest countries are cutting back on school, clothes and basic medical care just to give their children a meal once a day, experts say. Still, it is not enough. A record 1 billion people worldwide are hungry and a new report says the number will increase if governments do not spend more on agriculture. According to the U.N. food agency, which issued the report, 30 countries now require emergency aid, including 20 in Africa. The trend continues despite a goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015…”

Millions in Nepal facing hunger as climate changes, By Binaj Gurubacharya (AP), August 28, 2009, Bradenton Herald: ” Millions of people in Nepal face severe food shortages because global climate change has disrupted weather patterns and slashed crop yields in the Himalayan nation, an international aid agency warned Friday. Changing weather patterns have dramatically affected crop production in Nepal, leaving farmers unable to properly feed themselves and pushing them into debt, Oxfam International said in a report released in Katmandu…”

Little keeps Nigeria from a crisis of hunger, By David Hecht, August 2, 2009, Washington Post: “The nation blessed with Africa’s largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say. Nigeria was a major agricultural exporter before oil was discovered off its coast in the 1970s. But as it developed into the world’s eighth-largest oil producing country, its big farms and plantations were neglected. Today, about 90 percent of Nigeria’s agricultural output comes from inefficient small farms, according to the World Bank, and most farmers have little or no access to fertilizers, irrigation or other modern inputs. Most do not even grow enough food to feed their own families…”

Report highlights hunger in India, July 31, 2009, BBC News: “India is emerging as the world centre of hunger and malnutrition, a report by Indian campaign group, the Navdanya Trust, says. The trust says that there are more than 200 million people - or one-in-four Indians - going without enough to eat. The prominent environmentalist Vandana Shiva, who runs the trust, said there were now more hungry people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa…”

• Obama enlists major powers to aid poor farmers with $15 billion, By Peter Baker and Celia W. Dugger, July 8, 2009, New York Times: “President Obama has enlisted the world’s leading powers to contribute $15 billion to help millions of the world’s poorest farmers grow enough food to feed themselves, American officials said Wednesday.  If the assistance is delivered and is in fact mostly new money, it will constitute the largest international effort in decades to combat hunger by investing in the fundamentals of an agricultural economy, including seed, fertilizer, grain storage and research into new plant varieties…”
• Leaders of rich and poor countries launch new approach to world hunger, promise $20 billion, By Alessandra Rizzo (AP), July 10, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Leaders of rich and developing countries launched a new approach to global hunger Friday, saying they wanted to spend $20 billion on seeds, fertilizers, tools and other aid for small farmers over the next three years so poor nations could feed themselves.   The initiative announced at the end of a Group of Eight summit marked a new emphasis on helping farmers in the developing world boost production over the long term, moving away from an emphasis on emergency food aid for people suffering from drought and famine…”

• Climate change shifting seasons is causing widespread hunger, By Louise Gray, July 6, 2009, The Telegraph: “The regular arrival of the rains or a dry period to harvest staple crops ensures the majority of people around the world can grow enough food to eat. But a new report by Oxfam has found that poor farmers in developing countries are increasingly finding the growing season is changing as a consequence of climate change…”
• Third World hardest hit by climate change, report finds, By Sue Bailey, July 6, 2009, The Globe and Mail: “The globe’s richest powerhouses must get serious about how First World pollution is spreading disease and hunger in the poorest countries, a new report says. Oxfam International is calling for drastic action on global warming as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other Group of Eight leaders gather tomorow in Italy…”