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TechnoratiGovernment Able to End Hunger in US, Activist Says
"President Obama has promised to end child hunger in the United States by 2015. But you haven't heard about it. The media is writing about what Michelle Obama is wearing. Or what kind of dog they're going to get," Joel Berg almost shouted.
Fifty people showed up to hear Mr. Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, talk about his new book, "All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?" at WPXI last night.
While the subject was grim -- more than 36 million Americans currently live in a state of food insecurity -- the mood was surprisingly optimistic.
Mr. Berg marshaled plenty of statistics, but he also spoke about the progress that has been made and would continue to be made as long as people commit to ending hunger, rather than just mitigating its effects.
"Hunger is a problem that needs to be solved by the government, not by food banks or soup kitchens," Mr. Berg explained in an earlier interview. "If you doubled all the private food banks, it would knock a few million people out of hunger, [but] you could entirely end the problem almost overnight by just increasing funding and increasing eligibility to existing programs," such as food stamp programs, WIC and school meal programs.
In 2007 more than 10 percent of households in Pennsylvania experienced hunger at some point. In 2009 those numbers are undoubtably worse. Just Harvest and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, which co-hosted the talk, have firsthand knowledge of how much worse. The latter organization, a nonprofit that distributes food through outlets such as soup kitchens, Meals on Wheels and after-school programs, has been serving an average of 2,000 new households each month since August 2008.
But these circumstances have also created an unusual moment of opportunity for advocates such as Mr. Berg and other anti-hunger organizations to press for dramatic, substantial change, some of which has already started.
The federal government is about to release food-related stimulus funds that include money to help Americans who don't have enough money for basic necessities. According to Just Harvest and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, Pennsylvania alone could receive an estimated $754 million in additional food stamps funding over two years.
On a smaller scale, Michael Peck, food services director for Pittsburgh Public Schools, expanded the free meal program so that 66 schools and 18 early-childhood centers offer free breakfasts to all students and 41 schools and centers with the highest poverty rates offer free lunches to all students. He was able to get increased federal subsidies to support these expansions.
But Mr. Berg wants more than just increased funding. "As of two years ago, it would take about $24 billion to end hunger," Mr. Berg explained, pointing out that was only 2 percent of the bailout funds. "But unless you significantly reduce poverty, you're going to have to keep pumping money into [federal programs] every year."
8 Comments so far
Show AllWhen former President Clinton shredded the social safety net, America responded with a yawn. The results have been devastating. In a little over ten years since "reforming" welfare, eliminating it as a needs-based entitlement (not incidentally, to help cover the costs of annual "tax relief" for corporations that then used our money to move our jobs to foreign nations), the infant mortality rate among our poor has soared while the life expectancy of our poor has been on a downhill slide. The level of apathy we've seen toward today's poor just leaves a person numb.
Ending food insecurity means ending the prohibition of industrial hemp, the most nutritious agricultural resource on Earth. If you don't understand why this is true, take it as a sign that you have been manipulated into ignorance by institutionalized drug war prejudice.
If we could eradicate hunger in America with just 2% of the bailout money just think of the social good that would be accomplished if we used all of it towards similar ends:universal healthcare, free and universal access to education, housing and useful employment. Things have to change alright, and it is no longer utopian to suggest that we can with the intelligent use of our intellectual and material resources, that we could indeed produce on earth as it is in heaven and live in a garden of eden. That is not a fantasy but a fact. A fact that the ruling elite do not want you to realize, either in theory or in fact, in reality in the world. No they want to monopolize these resources to maintain their privledged positions in the world. It is to bad and so sad, it doesnt have to be this way.
Yours,
RR
Hunger is part of the capitalistic equation. Many more must die before the richest in the world have to share their precious wealth. In fact, death is part of our culture and always has been. War, food additives, rich corporate executives pushing sweetners that kill us like aspartane, cigarettes, liquor and such. When a society is based on the acquisition of great wealth for a few, death is inevitable for the many! Simple economics!
Sorry to break it to you, but there is no ending hunger. It is impossible. To understand why, visit
www.panearth.org.
Humans have this sense of unlimited resources (or at least, full bellies) and breed accordingly, when actually we live on a finite planet.
All living things have a tendency to reproduce to the limit of available food supply. As food supply has increased exponentially due to industrial agriculture, the population has increased in the same way.
There are going to be food shortages along the way, but at the same time, there is a lot of food that is wasted.
It’s tragic for humanity, but we have a choice to either drastically limit births, or face premature death on a massive scale (famine, epidemics, genocidal wars, etc.).
Not to mention all the other living things that will go extinct before we bring about our own destruction. They are currently going extinct at a rate of 27,000 SPECIES per year.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html
We are living off of our "savings" in the form of fossil fuels. We need to learn to live off the sun in real time, not draw down energy stores that have accumulated over millenia.
I’m sorry to be telling you this sad news, but you are intelligent people who are searching for knowledge and understanding. If you really want to see the big picture, overpopulation is it.
Expanding the arable base while increasing resource efficiency would solve the problems you perceive to be insolvable.
Add hemp agriculture back into the equation of survival and see if the numbers don't change.
Sorry to tell you but the Idea that full bellies increases population growth is the myth that has to be destroyed. ( how do the same old disproven theorums continue to be circulated decade after decade) Poor countries propagate as part of the economy. It takes many hands just to keep the family production unit at subsistence or starvation levels. With death so close to the door, you need to ensure that enough will survive out of the many to contribute to the family economy. This need evaporates as societies start to met material means and produce a surplus. That is why in the most developed countries, we do not have 15 children per household. Overproduction is the problem in capitalist societies not scarcity as in days of yore. And they were false pemises then, in early industrialisation callous justification NOT to help the poor.
Cheers,
RR
No American should go hungry. Period!