Blog Action Day - Food

Today is Blog Action Day.  That means that people around the world are all blogging on one topic to bring awareness to the forefront.  This year, the topic is food.

First, a few statistics on poverty and hunger in America:
Source: (http://www.afaceaface.org/blog/2011/02/hunger-in-america-2011-united-states-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/ and http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm)


In 2009, 43.6 million people were poor, up from 39.8 million in 2008 and 37.3 million in 2007 . The nation’s official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008 — the second statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004. (Census Bureau 2010a p.13)


The poverty rate in 2009 was the highest since 1994, but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. The number of people in poverty in 2009 is the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates are available.(Census Bureau 2010a p.13)

Between 2008 and 2009, the poverty rate increased for children under the age of 18 from 19.0 percent to 20.7 percent. Thus one in five children in the United States live in poverty. Almost half of these children (9.3 percent) live in extreme poverty. (Census Bureau 2010a p.13)

In 2009, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 11.1 percent and 8.8 million, respectively, up from 10.3 percent and 8.1 million in 2008. (Census Bureau 2010a p.18)

19 million Americans( 6.3 percent) live in extreme poverty. This means their family’s cash income is less than half of the poverty line, or less than about $11,000 a year for a family of four. (Census Bureau 2010a p.19)

16 million low-income households either paid more for rent and utilities than the federal government says is affordable or lived in overcrowded or substandard housing (CBPP 2007).

The percentage of people without health insurance increased to 16.7 percent in 2009 from 15.4 percent in 2008. The number of uninsured people increased to 50.7 million in 2009 from 46.3 million in 2008 (Census Bureau 2010a p. 22)

In 2010, 17.2 million households, 14.5 percent of households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States 1,2 (Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. v.)


In 2010, about one-third of food-insecure households (6.7 million households, or 5.4 percent of all U.S. households) had very low food security (compared with 4.7 million households (4.1 percent) in 2007 (). In households with very low food shecurity, the food intake of some household members was reduced, and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because of the household’s food insecurity (Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. v., USDA 2008, p. iii.) .

In 2010, children were food insecure at times during the year in 9.8 percent of households with children (3.9 million households.) In one percent of households with children,one or more of the children experienced the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA, very low food security, in which meals were irregular and food intake was below levels considered adequate by caregivers (Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. vi).

Background: The United States changed the name of its definitions in 2006 that eliminated references to hunger, keeping various categories of food insecurity. This did not represent a change in what was measured. Very low food insecurity (described as food insecurity with hunger prior to 2006) means that, at times during the year, the food intake of household members was reduced and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because the household lacked money and other resources for food. This means that people were hungry ( in the sense of "the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food" [Oxford English Dictionary 1971] for days each year (USDA 2006).

The International Food Crisis and the Environment
Source: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4038205.stm)

Our recent achievements are impressive - while global population doubled to 6 billion people in the 40 years from 1960, global food production more than kept up.


Facts and figures on the challenge of feeding the world At-a-glance

The proportion of malnourished people fell in the three decades to the mid-1990s from 37% to 18%. But we may not be able to go on at this rate.

For a start, much of the world's best cropland is already in use, and farmers are having to turn to increasingly marginal land. And the good land is often taking a battering - soil degradation has already reduced global agricultural productivity by 13% in the last half-century.

Many of the pesticides on which the crop increases have depended are losing their effectiveness, as the pests acquire more resistance.

A key constraint is water. The 17% of cropland that is irrigated produces an estimated 30-40% of all crops, but in many countries there will be progressively less water available for agriculture.

Many of these are poor countries, where irrigation can boost crop yields by up to 400%. There are ways to improve irrigation and to use water more effectively, but it's not clear these can bridge the gap.

Some say meat-heavy diets are environmentally unsustainable

Biotechnology, in principle, may offer the world a second Green Revolution, for example by producing drought-resistant plants or varieties that withstand pest attacks.

But it arouses deep unease, not least because of fears it may erode the genetic resources in thousands of traditional varieties grown in small communities across the world.

Nobody knows what the probable impacts of climate change will be on food supplies.

Modest temperature increases may actually benefit rich temperate countries, but make harvests even more precarious across much of the tropics.

We're Taking a Stand!

Our Land Ethic states many of our principles about the care and use of our environment and natural resources.  We also have a Corporate Stance against the use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), such as crops coming from genetically modified seeds, until we know more about the environmental and health impacts of genetic engineering.