Archive for the ‘Food Security’ Category

Posted by Kathryn Baer | May 3rd, 2011

As I recently wrote, Feeding America’s Map the Meal project provides food insecurity data for every state in the U.S. Happily, researchers stretched the category to include the District of Columbia.

So here’s a brief summary of what we learn about hunger in the District. I use the term “hunger” because people are counted as food insecure when they say they didn’t always have the resources to buy the food they and their families needed. Seems to me that, at least some of the time, they were probably hungry — not just insecure about where the next meal would come from.

In 2009:

• 15.8% of District residents — 93,180 — were food insecure. This is slightly below the nationwide 16.6% rate, but about 4% higher than the rates for either Virginia or Maryland and more than twice as high as the rates for nearby Arlington and Montgomery counties.
• Only 63% of food insecure District residents were eligible for food stamps, even under the higher eligibility ceiling authorized in 2009.
• The average per meal cost of the Thrifty Food Plan — the basis for calculating food stamp benefits — was 67 cents higher than the national average.
• So it would have cost somewhat over $53 million to make up the “meal gap,” i.e., the cost of providing all food insecure residents with enough to eat year round.

A couple of thoughts about the fact that we’re looking at 2009 data.

First — and this would be true for most other jurisdictions as well — the unemployment rate was higher then. By the end of the year, it had risen to 11.9%. As of this January, it was down to 9.8%.

For this reason alone, it’s possible that the next round of food insecurity data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will show a somewhat lower rate.

More importantly, the Income Maintenance Administration, which administers the food stamp program in the District, hadn’t implemented the higher income eligibility standard or a related reform that gives some eligible residents larger benefits.

The Food Stamp Expansion Act, which authorizes the changes, was adopted in June 2009. IMA got around to implementing the part that raises the income eligibility ceiling in March 2010.

The part that provides higher benefits for some food stamp recipients may have been implemented now, but only because of a recent legal settlement secured by the Legal Aid Society and pro bono partners.

So the 2009 food insecurity rate for the District may be higher than it would have been if the responsible District agencies had felt as much urgency as hungry residents undoubtedly did.

Or maybe this is an unfair cheap shot. While the DC Council imposed new tasks on IMA, it also agreed to budget cuts that squeezed the agency’s core operations. Perhaps this accounts, at least in part, for the delay.

I remarked awhile ago, that District officials characteristically do a better job at adopting new progressive policies than at providing the resources to make sure that existing policies can achieve what they’re supposed to. The same apparently can be said for follow-through on new policies.

Low-income residents really shouldn’t have to rely on attorneys to get them the benefits they’re legally entitled to. The District may have budget constraints, but what about theirs?

Posted by Allison Burket | March 29th, 2011

Join us for next week for a discussion and author event at Bread for the City’s Northwest Center on the topic of Food Justice – featuring Food Justice co-author Robert Gottlieb, local food justice advocate Louise Thundercloud, and many others involved in food, nutrition, and justice in the District.

Wednesday, April 6th
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Bread for the City
1525 7th Street Northwest

We’ll be talking a bit about issues and inequities in today’s food system – from the farm workers’ hazardous conditions, to the fact that low-income neighborhoods lack supermarkets, to the emphasis on convenience rather than quality and nutrition in food marketing today. Robert Gottlieb will share perspectives on a nation-wide movement that seeks to transform this food system into one that is more just. Then we’ll look more locally – what does food justice mean for D.C. residents? What opportunities and challenges exist in our city? How does Bread for the City’s programs and rooftop garden fit into all this? What can you do to help?

Join us! Event is free but space is limited. Please RSVP to aburket@breadforthecity.org. This event is co-hosted by D.C. Farm to School Network, Slow Food D.C., Centro Ashé, and the National Family Farm Coalition.

Posted by Molly Meehan | March 8th, 2011

The Accokeek Foundation’s Center for Agricultural and Environmental Stewardship, in partnership with the National Immigrant Farming Initiative and the Rural Coalition, is collaborating to present our 2011 Food Justice Series. This series of four open-to-all events will feature a panel of speakers and a period of discussion, and will spotlight the issues that affect food [...]

Posted by Sharon Gruber | March 4th, 2011

[Cross-posted from Beyond Bread]

Somehow three years have gone by (actually flown by) since I started working at Bread for the City. As the go-to person for all things nutrition-related, I’ve been asked to reflect on how far we’ve come in that time and where we’re going next. I figured a Top 10 list might be a fun way to go about it (it could have been a Top 100 list, but…) so here we go, in no particular order:

10. My work day will never be boring. Our clients face many different kinds of problems, and we must always think creatively to support them in addressing them. This means we rely on our co-workers who have expertise in a variety of areas, and it also means that we need to be creative.

9. Building it does not necessarily ensure that they will come–even if they sign up to come. We’ve developed a lot of fun and free opportunities to learn cool things here in nutrition classes, cooking classes, and more. But our clients’ schedules are at the mercy of all kinds of challenging factors: they might not have working phones to receive calls; they might be dependent on unreliable public transportation; they’re often thrust into crises of all kinds; and sometimes are dealing with physical and mental health issues that make it challenging to keep commitments. How does this affect the programming we offer? Well, we try hard and then hope for the best. We make reminder calls, put signs up around the building, and then we cold-call all past participants of related workshops in hope that it might be a good fit for them this time around, as well. And then we divide by 2. If 40 people say they’re coming, we have learned to expect that this means we’ll have 20 people max, which might be the number we were hoping for anyhow.

8. Simply sharing stories can be transformative. This year, we explored struggles relating to food and health in a support-group setting. People share things in a group that they might not in a one-on-one consultation, and peers can learn a lot from listening to each other. We plan to start up the second iteration of our weight loss support group in the spring.

7. It is worth getting your hands dirty. At a client trip to a nearby urban farm this past summer, a regular cooking workshop participant turned to me with a fistful of mint and asked, “Is this mint?” Me: “Yes.” Client, smelling the mint: “I never tasted mint before the fish stew we made at the cooking workshop last month. I loved that stew and have been intending to make it. And now I get to pick the mint myself. I’m going to make it tonight! Just beautiful.” Sometimes it takes getting one’s hands enmeshed with the food to demystify it and motivate to try it at home. We hope to do lots more of this at our own rooftop gardens this summer.

6. Having the education doesn’t mean we have the answers. After getting a complete picture of a medical patient’s diet and exercise habits, I ask: “What do you think about how you’re eating?” and “What have been obstacles in the past that have stopped you from getting where you want to be health-wise?” and also, “What do you need to help you take better care of yourself?”

5. It’s hard to know what will stick and how things travel. For example, a few months ago I was talking with workshop participants about the disproportionate amount of starchy foods at a traditional Thanksgiving meal. When I asked the group if squash counts as a starch, one diabetic client, Ms. Johnson, said, “Is it winter squash or summer squash? You taught us a while ago that winter squash like butternut is full of starch and this matters for diabetes, but summer squash like zucchini is more watery and cleansing.” I knew that she was engaged during the workshops, but this was impressive recollection. Also, sometimes it seems that a client might not be ready to make changes just yet; but seeds can sprout later on, or get transferred to friends and family. You just never know.

4. Food can mask almost anything if someone wants it to. Lots of patients say they overeat because they “love” food, but they also describe eating as a numbing technique, a way to disengage from something deeper going on. When we love something, don’t we want to fully engage in it? When people overeat in this way, it’s often that first bite that they love, but then they love the mask that the eating creates. I’ve had the honor of witnessing some patients do the complex work of addressing what’s happening in that deeper place, and have seen them freed to truly love food, to eat it slowly and savor each bite.

3. Food is more complicated than we might imagine. In fact, there are more reasons than I ever could have imagined as to why people make the decisions they make around food. It never occurred to me that one of my patients would tell me that she can’t cook at home because she is too wide to turn around in her narrow galley kitchen. Or the pervasiveness of the story of those of us who are out of work, no longer on a schedule, and too depressed about it to try to come up with a plan. This is precisely why I don’t prescribe to one specific diet. Every body is different. Not only are we unique on a biochemical level, but our life circumstances also dictate unique approaches that can work for us.

2. Effective leaders initiate progress but are still grounded in their community. Being a leader means BFC needs to stick to its values and lead by example while also staying in close contact with the clients we serve. We have a serious responsibility to our clients and to the community overall, which means, among other things, being firm about not distributing high-sugar and high-sodium items that promote diabetes and heart disease. And it means having a continuous dialog with our clients about the food we provide.

1. There is much more to be done. When I started here three years ago, it was on a three-month contract. Still, I thought a lot could be accomplished in that time. Though I might have accomplished some of it, it was certainly a drop in the bucket. I think of that first year as the year of the low-hanging fruit. I started work in both the medical clinic and the food pantry; among other things, I started seeing patients individually, and the food program stopped purchasing unhealthy snacks, high-sodium soups and other canned goods, and we implemented a no trans-fats policy. With Glean for the City in full swing, as well as other projects in the works, I see years two and three as a time of programmatic innovation. I hope that at the end of this year, my fourth, I can look back on the meshing of some of our new activities into our overall holistic approach. I hope that our messages about food and health in the medical clinic and in the food program will be even more unified and that our complement of programs will offer all BFC clients an opportunity to access and explore healthy, tasty foods in a way that is fun, inspiring, and nourishing.

Thank you for supporting us along this great journey.

Posted by Polly Clare-Rothe | March 1st, 2011

At the end of the day, the “Community Brainstorm: Building a Healthy, Hunger-Free DC” session provided interested attendees the opportunity to participate in a discussion about how to build a more just, nourishing food system in DC. As shown by the turnout at Rooting DC, countless nonprofits and individuals are involved in food politics in this city; this session offered space to think about collaborating and creating change.

The food system impacts the environment, the economy, and people, yet there is no centralized agency responsible for it; in DC, at least 13 different city agencies play a role in shaping our local food system.

Carl Rollins of Common Good City Farm pointed out that if we want to change the local food system, we need to get involved—there are currently too few players deciding on the policies, and most of them are non-profit service providers, not necessarily DC residents who have the most at stake. With many groups and nonprofits focused primarily on emergency food distribution, we aren’t always thinking about how to improve the system itself.

Alicia Cameden of the Capital Area Food Bank then explained the concept of a food policy council, which has the potential to improve DC’s fragmented food system. Food policy councils in other cities and states engage with government policy, grassroots projects, businesses and food workers. They serve as forums for the discussion of food issues and coordination between the various sectors of the food system, and can influence government policies.

We broke into four groups to discuss what a healthier, more just food system in DC would look like, and to brainstorm city-wide, grassroots initiatives that could address some of the current problems. At the end, each group shared just a few of their favorite ideas, which included these:

• Form a leadership council to encourage sharing of information
• Better utilize volunteers by developing a centralized volunteer bank
• Emphasize food sovereignty rather than food access; people should have a say in what food they eat
• Appreciate traditional wisdom; learn from individuals who already grow their own food
• Build communities around food; for example, happy hours, potlucks and block parties

Only an hour long, this Community Brainstorm was not intended to create answers but rather to gather interested individuals, begin ongoing conversations, and get ideas flowing. There will be many more chances to share ideas at future sessions, which will be hosted by these and other groups in the upcoming months. In addition, a survey is being created that will explore barriers to food access as well as some of the things that are working well in DC neighborhoods.

There are many ways to get involved, such as helping with the survey or attending or hosting an upcoming discussion. For more information, contact Allison Burket at aburket@breadforthecity.org.

The session was sponsored by the DC Food Justice Coalition, Bread for the City, SHIRE, DC Hunger Solutions, Common Good City Farm, Ecolocity, Groundwork Anacostia, Healthy Solutions, MWPHA Health Disparities Committee, ROC-DC, and others.

Posted by Allison Burket | February 15th, 2011

This post is the fourth in a series from Bread for the City intern Allison Burket exploring the basics of food, hunger, and politics in the District.

Posted by Allison Burket | February 11th, 2011

America the Beautiful Fund and the Field to Fork Network’s 4th annual Rooting DC gardening forum is just around the corner! Rooting DC will be held on Saturday, February 19th from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm at Coolidge High School located at 6315 5th Street, NW.

This day-long, FREE event includes presentations and workshops on community gardens and food policy, healthy cooking demonstrations, and a whole track dedicated to youth and school gardens.

The DC Food For All community is a buzz with excitement – Ibti Vincent gives us a poetic preview of her canning workshop, Bread for the City is preparing for conversations about rooftop gardening and a food policy brainstorm, and the Farm at Walker Jones plugs its session on youth and community gardens. Check back for interviews with presenters and more tantalizing sneak peaks!

Download the full agenda here. Please call the America the Beautiful Fund offices at 202.638.1649 to register immediately.

Interested in volunteering? Photographing, filming, or blogging about the day? Contact lizlizwhitehurstwhitehurst@gmail.com to find out how!

Posted by Allison Burket | January 18th, 2011

This post is the first in a series from Bread for the City intern Allison Burket exploring the basics of food, hunger, and politics in the District.

What’s up with food and hunger in DC? In what ways is DC “food insecure”?

First, some figures. According to the USDA’s analysis, over one in eight families in DC classifies as “food insecure,” of not having sufficient access to nutritious food over the course of a year. Of all households in DC with children, 40.6 percent have had times when funds were not sufficient to put food on the table. The Capital Area Food Bank, which serves over 478,100 local residents, released its own comprehensive profile of hunger in DC in 2010. They find that 1 in 3 DC residents is at risk of or experiencing hunger. The food bank has seen a 25 percent increase in food clients in recent years.

Economic hard times in the city exacerbate the impact of an industrialized food system in which lower-quality foods are produced on the cheap. Diseases related to diet and lifestyle are at an all-time high across the country. In DC, where the obesity rate is 22.2% and levels of residents with hypertension reach beyond 28%, these challenges are disproportionately felt in low-income communities and communities of color. For example, Ward 8, which is 92% Black or African American, has a median income of around $25,000 and an obesity rate of 41.9%. This can be compared to Ward 3’s 84% white population with median income of $72,000 and 11.7% obesity rate. (For more on obesity in DC, see the report from the DC Department of Health.)

Communities that are already struggling to afford fresh and nutritious food might not be able to find these staples in their own neighborhoods. So-called “food deserts” result from policies and development practices that have left many lower-income neighborhoods without access to full-service grocery stores or alternative sources of fresh food. DC Hunger Solutions has led the research on the “grocery gap” phenomenon in a 2010 report that identifies the areas in the city, particularly Wards 7 and 8, most impacted by uneven distribution of full-service grocery stores and draws connections to issues of unemployment, obesity, and the local economy. The DC government has launched an effort to combat this phenomenon, though based on experiences with similar initiatives in New York and Pennsylvania, reducing food deserts alone is insufficient to bring down obesity rates.

More than just hunger at a given moment in time, these studies capture the impact of what is increasingly recognized as a broken food system. If recent headlines are any indication, it’s clear that the factors affecting our ability to feed ourselves in a way that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable are complicated and difficult to track, predict, or control: housing and development trends in DC make it difficult for DC residents to access food pantries and federal nutrition programs; battles on the national level over funding for school lunches and for SNAP benefits have been drawn-out and wonky; though farmers and consumer groups across the country have recently been putting up quite a fight, corporate concentration across the food and agriculture sectors continues to result in lower prices for farmers and higher prices for consumers.

So what would it mean to talk about “food security” in DC? According to the standard definition, a community is “food secure” when all residents obtain a “safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.” This perspective is useful in that it considers all the factors that influence the availability, cost, and quality of food to area households, but gosh, trying to think about all those factors and how to make them work better for DC can be a little overwhelming.

The good news is that, while there’s a lot of work to be done, there are a lot of folks already doing it. Recent developments at Bread for the City, as well as a range of stellar projects, programs, and legislative victories captured on the DC Food For All blog, lead me to believe that DC can take the power of making healthy, sustainable food choices into its own hands.

Check in next week as I begin to explore the federal nutrition programs serving District residents!