Ken's Commentary – 8/27: Land of the Free, Home of the Hungry?

This week I?m attending a major farm show in Iowa where the
giant combines, tractors, and trucks adorn each block and the
air-conditioned tents beckon in thousands of visitors.
This ?farm city? is teeming with growers, managers and consultants
studying every new piece of hardware and software and figuring out
how they can apply it to grow food more efficiently.

Along with the glitz of the show, there is an effort to sensitize the
agricultural community to the number of people who are ?food
insecure? in cities, small towns and rural areas. It was with some shock
that I listened to Jean Kresse, President and CEO of the United Way
of Story County. Her jurisdiction sits right in the middle of Iowa and
includes Ames, the home of Iowa State University. Her message is that
churches and the Food Bank can?t get enough food to serve the people
who are showing up for free meals or food pantry items.

I asked: how it could be that people are hungry in the middle of the
most productive land in America? She is a caring charity organization
professional but I wouldn?t put her over in the bleeding heart category.
He message is complicated as each subgroup seems to have its own
reason for coming up short on nutrition.

?We find that there are people who don?t have access to food due to
lack of transportation,? she explained. ?Their only grocery store is
attached to a gasoline station and it doesn?t have what they need to eat
a healthy diet.? She went on to explain that seniors on fixed income
pay for their medications and other necessities first and they are out
of money before they get to food. Compounding this are the shopping
habits of those who have a small amount of money for food. ?They buy
mac and cheese rather than fresh vegetables,? was her answer. ?They
sacrifice nutrition for something that is cheap and filling.?

The next category is single parents with children. I feel so removed
from their world that I stand on the other side of the glass looking
in and asking why someone can?t prioritize or improvise to make
sure they, and their children, get a balanced diet. Iowa United Way
provided me with a report on food insecurity. The Iowa Income Report
has developed a ?supporting wage? that is about 2.3 times the ?poverty
line.?

In Iowa, there are about 156,000 single-parent families. A single parent
with one child must earn $17.91 per hour ($37,200 annual) to provide this
very basic standard of living for the family. A single parent with two children
needs to earn $24.06 ($50,044 annual) to adequately support his or her
family. Child care costs alone consume 19 percent of a single-parent?s
family budget with one child and 23 percent with two children. In fact,
monthly child care costs for a single parent with two children are almost
as large as housing costs. Nearly three-fourths of Iowa?s working single
parents earn less than the supporting wage.

?Many people live below the ‘supporting wage’ and don?t have enough
money to buy the food they need,? argues Ms. Kresse. ?We have a
chart showing how much you have to spend to cover cost of living in
our area and many single parents live below it.?

In the table below, you can see the cost of living in Story County.

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In the breakout it shows that one parent with two children needs $576
per month for food. That seems excessive to me. Is that home cooked
or dining out or a combination of the two?

Ms. Kresse goes one step further: ?We know there are people who
need food assistance but won?t accept it.? She tells me of their efforts
to get a cross section of people to accept the USDA?s Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or reduced prices for school lunch
for their children. ?They tell us others are worse off than they are so
they can?t accept it.?

At the farm show, the Howard G. Buffet Foundation is matching
food donations at one dollar a pound, up to $10,000. Monsanto is
encouraging FFA and 4-H clubs to bring canned food to the event in
exchange for admission. They are also contributing $10,000 to the
Food Bank of Iowa and passing out $250 to six chapters or clubs who
bring in the most food.

If you think the hunger issue is trivial or peripheral to production
agriculture, keep in mind that eighty percent of the funding for pending
farm legislation (80 billion dollars per year) is for food and nutrition
programs. If they are cut, then urban legislators will see that farm
programs get cut by a greater percentage.

I look at a country that has plenty of food, potential to
grow more, and yet we have people who are malnourished, and I ask: why?

The more the problem unfolds, the less I understand it.