FRANKFORT, Ky. -- September is Hunger Action Month, and advocates say the latest round of federal Pandemic EBT and Summer EBT will give Kentucky's economy a boost of more than $267 million, while helping families put food on the table.

Pandemic EBT is the national program established last year at the beginning of the COVID crisis. It provides cash for groceries to low-income families of young children whose daycare and preschool may have been disrupted by COVID-19.

Summer EBT is a one-time grocery benefit, reimbursing families who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches for the extra cost of food they incurred during the summer.

Eric Friedlander, secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said the programs will directly affect more than 600,000 children.

"Whatever happens to one of us in the community affects us all," Friedlander contended. "And this is a great example of that. Because this Pandemic EBT goes to an individual, but then what happens is it supports the retailers in our local communities. And that is critical for everyone in a community."

For more information about requirements and qualifications, call the Department of Community Based Services hotline at 1-855-306-8959. Families who lost their EBT or P-EBT card can call 888-979-9949 to receive a new one.

Steve McClain, director of Communications and Public Affairs for the Kentucky Retail Federation, said increased grocery purchases can have a big impact, especially in rural communities.

"It's not just the grocery store workers," McClain explained. "These are dollars that go back to the folks that produce the food, to deliver the food, to the stores."

Last month, households nationwide reported the lowest levels of food insecurity since the start of the pandemic, according to Census data. But SNAP enrollment continues to spike, with six million more people relying on food benefits compared to 2019.

California is home to more than 181,000 people who are unhoused, with 75,000 in Los Angeles alone, so the Los Angeles Food Policy Council will host a panel discussion today on options for getting healthy food to the unhoused population.

The event will feature firsthand accounts from people experiencing homelessness, plus experts from local agencies and nonprofits.

Alba Velasquez, executive director of the council, said the discussion is aimed at finding solutions.

"We want to center our conversation around what sorts of policies need to be in place in order to make systemic change that would allow more, healthier food options to be easily accessible to some of our most vulnerable communities," Velasquez explained.

She noted the panel will hear from community members with lived experience and will explore a more dignified approach to providing food, favoring healthier, more thoughtful choices, instead of defaulting to cheap, convenient options like instant noodles or pasta.

Velasquez suggested policymakers look for ways to increase acceptance of electronic benefits transfer at local restaurants for hot meals.

"How do we make hot meals easier to access for folks that don't have refrigeration units to store, or don't even have a secure place to stay, because they're constantly moving?" Velasquez asked.

The panel, which is open to the public, will take place at 10 a.m. today at the Huffington Center in Koreatown. Speakers include the host of a podcast called "We the unhoused," as well as representatives from the Los Angeles Community Action Network, the Los Angeles City Controller's office, the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority and the Skid Row People's Market.


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In observance of Hunger Action Month, a new statewide collaborative has launched to address food insecurity in South Dakota.

Nearly 14% of U.S. households struggled getting food last year, according to new U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

That includes over 100,000 South Dakotans, said Timothy Meagher, who's on the steering committee for the South Dakota Healthy Nutrition Collaborative.

Its members are looking to tackle food insecurity by integrating a network of resources - from healthcare groups and universities, to community foundations and food producers.

Meagher said the group aims to "align resources to actions."

"Because we believe we can improve nutrition," said Meagher, "decrease the disease, and provide every South Dakota citizen with an opportunity to be the best version of themselves."

Along with the new national data, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement that the high rate of food insecurity is "a direct outcome of congressional actions" - including blocking the expansion of the Child Tax Credit, and restricting access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Meagher said the collaborative's one-year goals include assessing the landscape of organizations that deal with hunger and improving coordination among them, elevating voices of advocates, researchers and people experiencing food insecurity, and advancing policy to address the issue.

"Basically, we're putting on a whiteboard," said Meagher, "'Here's what we know collectively. What do we need to know, and how do we take action on it?'"

Nutritious diets can help prevent cancer and heart disease, which are the two leading causes of death in the state, according to the South Dakota Department of Health.


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By Kristi Eaton for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Deborah Van Fleet for Nebraska News Connection reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration

The links between climate change, farmers and nutrition in low-income countries is a matter of national security in the United States, said an official with the Farm Journal Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that released a new report.

"If you're hungry, you're going to do just about anything you need to do to feed yourself and your family, especially if you are a mom, and you will go hungry yourself to feed your child," Katie Lee, vice president of government affairs at Farm Journal Foundation, told the Daily Yonder.

"That leads to all sorts of challenging situations where that is more of an issue. We still have hungry people in the United States. But it is a far more dire issue in lower-income countries - just in terms of sheer percentage of populations of people who are dealing with either acute hunger where they're on the brink of starvation, or general hunger, where they're not having regular access to food, let alone nutritious food."

Lee was referring to a study that found weather events over the past several years have led to lower harvests, lost agricultural incomes and increasing food prices. All those factors contribute to increasing rates of malnutrition, according to the report by Ramya Ambikapathi and Daniel Mason-D'Croz, senior research associates at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Department of Global Development.

About 3 billion people around the world are unable to afford a well-balanced, healthy diet that includes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and animal-sourced foods, the study found. People in low- and middle-income countries, where farming is often the main source of income, are feeling the brunt of the impact.

Women farmers were a centerpiece to the report.

Ambikapathi, one of the report authors, said women feel the impacts of climate change more severely than men due to higher exposure and sensitivity. She pointed out that a crop loss or a small pest infestation can have devastating effects because they cannot address it as easily because of lower access to information and financial services compared to men.

"I think one of the more classic (impacts is that when women are primarily responsible for getting water, and the more you see drought-like conditions, (they) have to go further and further," Ambikapathi said in a Zoom interview with the Daily Yonder. "There's also a lot of new reports that come out that gender-based violence increases with climate change."

Study co-author Mason-D'Croz echoed that sentiment. Vulnerable groups have less access to resources, he said.

"When you do have some sort of an external shock, whether climate, pests and disease, economic shock of some sort - these groups almost always are the ones who get hit the hardest, because they have the least capacity to absorb it," Mason-D'Croz said in a Zoom interview.

The report makes recommendations for what U.S. policymakers can do to support global nutrition security. The recommendations include supporting investments in agricultural research and development; investing in programs that benefit women's nutrition and womenwho work in agriculture and food systems; and increasing support for programs that improve farmers' access to finance, among other recommendations.

Lee said the study points to policy actions the U.S. could take. "We have lots of opportunities through appropriations and funding and the Farm Bill to support ag development and innovation, and address challenges like climate change, global hunger and malnutrition and things like high input costs that hurt farmers, bottom lines, and more," she said.

In addition to global nutrition being a U.S. national security issue, Lee said there are also concerns about pests and health risks, including animal diseases. Thirdly, there are economic and trade angles that suggest a focus on climate change and global nutrition should be a U.S. priority.

"If we're looking at where the trade opportunities are going forward, it's in places like Africa," Lee said. "And there are huge markets and a huge rapidly growing population, where, through working with smallholder farmers to try to build up incomes in those countries, there's a huge opportunity for U.S. agriculture."

Finally, she added, it's simply the right thing to do.

"We should be taking a view that anyone who is hungry in this world, any child or a mother, who is hungry, is not acceptable," she said.


Kristi Eaton wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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