Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

So who's going to feed us if we don't feed ourselves?
paul tradingpost@lobo.net
--------------------

http://www.alternet.org/stories/68054/
One in Ten Americans Went Hungry Last Year

By Abid Aslam, IPS News. Posted November 28, 2007.

More than one in 10 people in the United States go
hungry, according to government figures suggesting its
food programs are falling short in the world's
wealthiest country.

More than one in 10 people in the United States go
hungry, according to new official figures that suggest
government food programs are falling short in the
world's wealthiest country.

More than 35 million people in a country of some 294
million went hungry last year, 390,000 more than in
2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
latest Household Food Security report.

Of the total, 12.63 million were children. Put another
way, nearly one in five U.S. children either went
without enough food during the course of the year or had
food but could never take future meals for granted.

The report, released Wednesday, comes as Congress
debates the 2007 Farm Bill, a five-year piece of
legislation affecting everything from agricultural
subsidies to nutritional programmes for the poor.

Anti-hunger activists lamented the findings.

"The U.S. is the only industrialised nation that still
allows hunger within its borders," said David Beckmann,
president of the advocacy group Bread for the World.

Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action
Centre, warned the situation likely has worsened since
the agriculture department surveyed the populace in
December 2006.

"As costs for food, energy, and housing continue to rise
and wages stagnate or decline, households are finding
themselves increasingly strapped," Weill said. "This may
mean even worse numbers in 2007. We need to do more to
make sure that households have access to healthy food by
improving and expanding proven programmes that help."

The advocates highlighted the federal government's Food
Stamp Programme, which Beckmann called "the flagship
nutrition safety net for Americans", as needed an
upgrade.

The programme provides food stamps to more than 26
million people every month, enabling them to use the
tokens in place of cash to purchase specified
foodstuffs. According to Beckmann and Weill, the relief
is insufficient.

"The average benefit of one dollar per meal per person
is just not enough to buy adequate, nutritious food,"
said Beckmann, whose group plans to launch its own
hunger report Nov. 19.

Added Weill: "Congress is considering the farm bill,
which includes the food stamp programme. They have the
chance to make it easier for households to access the
programme, keep benefits growing with the cost of living
rather than losing ground to inflation, and raise the
allowable asset and minimum benefit levels for the first
time in decades."

According to the food security report, the latest in a
series begun in 1995, 10.4 percent of all U.S. adults
and 17.2 percent of all children suffered food
insecurity in 2006.

Of the 35.52 million food insecure U.S. residents, 11.1
million lived in households marked by "very low food
security," a new term for what the government used to
call "food insecurity with hunger". The figure rose from
10.8 million in 2005, consistent with other surveys
showing worsening conditions among the poorest.

Black and Hispanic households suffered the most, with
food insecurity rates of 21.8 percent and 19.5 percent
respectively.

The latest findings chime with recent government reports
showing poverty was largely unchanged five years after
the U.S. economy began clawing its way back from
recession.

Modest gains in household income have failed to lift
significant numbers out of poverty, the U.S. Census
Bureau reported in August.

The national poverty rate fell to 12.3 percent in 2006,
down from 12.6 percent the year before, but remained
well above the 11.3 percent mark recorded in 2000, the
last year in which it dropped.

The census bureau said family earnings had risen
modestly because more members were working and
contributing to household income but that not everyone
had benefited.

In the countryside, poverty had stagnated at 15.2
percent, three percentage points above the national
average. In all, nearly 7.2 million inhabitants of rural
areas fell below the poverty line last year despite
rising agricultural prices.

The elderly accounted for much of last year's
improvement and, as a group, were better off than they
were in 2001. By contrast, poverty rates for children
and for adults of working age remained statistically
unchanged from 2005 and higher than in 2001, when the
last recession bottomed out.Overall, some 36.5 million
people were deemed poor in 2006, about as many as in
2005, the census bureau said.