Remember when the pandemic started? Toilet paper was fought over,. Meat aisles were empty across supermarkets around the country,. and a lot of panic set in. "We are strong and we can make it, but we have to unite.". For most Americans, the panic buying has stopped and things have, for the most part, calmed down. But for millions of others, things have gotten way worse. The largest food bank network in the country to feed America food banks. already sas that they will fall short by one point four billion dollars this year. Food insecurity has gotten a lot of attention during the pandemic. And this is something that's going to,. If things aren't drastically changed in the world, is set to get worse for sure. We like to talk about this and use the metaphor of the perfect storm. The U.N. estimates we're going to see one hundred and thirty two million. More people going hungry because of the pandemic and specifically because of the pandemic. Even though we're only eight months into this, this is our new normal. And I think that we take it day by day. In America, the richest nation on earth. Food insecurity has hit at least 52 million people,. An increase of 17 million people from pre-pandemic times. That's a mind boggling number for the richest country in the world. And it really does come down to whether people have enough money to eat. Those obstacles are because of how farms,. The government, and the supply chain all worked before the pandemic. And needed to adjust to a new world. And whether or not they can is the difference between whether millions of people. Will go to bed hungry in the coming months or not. It's not too difficult to understand why so many Americans are going hungry. It comes down to a few factors. The big one is the economic factor. Millions of people are being thrown out of work all around the world. And so it means that they just don't have the money to be able to afford to eat. In the ways that they used to do. When millions of Americans start losing their jobs and the economy begins to suffer,. hunger isn't far behind. What we learned from the 2008 recession is that food insecurity is a lagging indicator. when the kind of economic devastation that we've experienced occurs. And even though the economy as the economy, I should say, recovers,. Food insecurity lags behind. So we did not see food security return to the pre 2008 recession levels until about 2018. Despite the economic catastrophe covid has created,. one of the more striking facts about food insecurity is that it doesn't actually need to exist. Unlike other periods of that you might think of with a large famine,. we actually don't have a situation of insufficient supply. So that's what really makes this breaking right now. There's no shortage of food in the world. There's more than enough food to feed every single person on the planet. As the pandemic hit, there are stories that seem to defy logic. Why are farmers all across the country breaking eggs, slaughtering cattle and dumping milk? While grocery store shelves were empty and lines for food banks went on for blocks. A lot of food in the country was directed straight to restaurant demand and straight to the food sector,. and redirecting that from restaurants and into grocery stores was very difficult to do. The food supply chain that gets food from a farm onto a person's plate in America. Is extremely efficient, but it's also extremely fragile. Usually it goes from the farmer to a packager. Where it gets packaged in separate amounts depending on the customer. Those amounts can be drastically different, depending on who's buying the food,. Which became a problem when restaurants started closing en masse. You think about the example of butter. You may have, you know, 40 pound crates of butter going into restaurants. And obviously nobody wants to bring 40 pounds of butter home into their personal homes. And so the the way that that food gets transferred is supplied and sent through the supply chain has become very narrow in the U.S. And it was difficult for farmers to adjust from one situation to another. So the same efficiency that keeps prices down during pre-pandemic times threw everything into chaos. But some farmers have been able to adjust by bypassing traditional supply chains altogether. The other thing that people have done in me in recent months. Was actually going from farmers, going directly to consumers in a bigger way. A lot of farms started turning their own farm parking lot or some pickup location. Into a place where they could take advanced online orders and offer pickup or some limited form of delivery. We followed with our software in helping them work with individuals,. As you know, both for them to make up for the missed sales from restaurants and schools,. but also for them to offer individuals a way to shop from a farm that didn't involve going to a store. So for some Americans, going to farms directly does help alleviate some of the supply chain pressures during a crisis. But it doesn't solve the problem for millions of Americans, which is they're unable to buy food at all. Our biggest challenge right now is there are a few federal programs that have really helped us. stand in the gap for hungry Americans that that will be coming off line,. at least right now as far as we can tell. One of those programs is SNAP, more commonly known as food stamps,. which the Trump administration has been trying to slash for 700000 people,. only to be blocked by a federal judge in October. We've seen an increase in the numbers of people who are applying for food stamps. or are relying on food stamps. But all of those programs, don't you know, they still outstrip or the need is still outstripped by those programs. SNAP not only is it easy for families who are experiencing food insecurity,. who suffered a job loss, who have gone through a health crisis to purchase. That food right in there at the retailer, which helps our our food supply chain work in its most efficient way. It also contributes to local economies. For every dollar that's invested in SNAP, there's about a dollar seventy returned in economic benefit to a local economy. Some government programs could be the beginnings of real solutions. In April, the USDA launched a program aimed at helping both hungry Americans and food producers. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which gave 19 billion dollars to farmers. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program is is a great first step toward that effort. to immediately provide support to farmers and provide the financial support. So that they can process that food and make it available in partnership with folks who and companies that bid contracts to the USDA to turn that food over to food banks. across the nation and distribute it to people who are needing relief. Advocates see this kind of farm to food bank model. as a potential game changer for future crises. If we can garner the right public and private partners to come together and to learn from this experience. and to make sure that there's support readily available to American farmers when and if, God forbid, that happens again to make sure that they can immediately convert that food over for hungry Americans. And that requires federal government investment and solutions. and private partners like our charitable network and others to work together in that regard. Ultimately, COVID is just exacerbating the crisis that was already knocking on the door: climate change. Just since the pandemic started, we have helped support communities across the country who have gone through hurricanes, tornadoes, the drought show in Iowa. We've already had to essentially quadruple our disaster relief budget at the Feeding America National Office to support additional sourcing of food and resources to those communities. And while we're in the midst of this pandemic, in every food bank across the nation is meeting, you know, as much as a 50 percent increase in need in their local communities. It has been a considerable drain on our system. But again, we are doing everything we can to anticipate these storms and position product and food in advance of the storms hitting so that it can be there right when people need it. And that's what we'll continue to do.
