The USDA has released its data for hunger in the United States, and the numbers aren't good.

In 2007, 36 million people were classified 'food insecure'. In 2008, the figure was 49 million - an increase of 13 million.

Children were badly affected, though older children took the hit if they had younger siblings. Those in the front lines were, of course, women. The graph shows the differences in US hunger between 2007 and 2008: single mothers and women living alone were worst hit. ... read more »

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Posted on 16 November, 2009 - 21:52

JJ Tiziou Photography - please donate!

I’m back from a trip to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, as part of a delegation of food justice activists. For a full report, do read the thoughts of the excellent Tom Philpott. To supplement his report, though, I thought I'd jot down a couple of impressions.

Although I’d never been there before, our guided tour around the town of Immokalee felt familiar. Immokalee means ‘my home’ in Seminole. And it was peoples’ homes that I’d seen before, in another country. The trailers where tomato-pickers sleep reminded me of South African townships, filled with densely packed low-income houses, built by the government to keep the supply of black labour close, but not too close, to the cities where their work was required.

Except that the conditions in Apartheid era township houses were better than in Immokalee. ... read more »

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Posted on 7 March, 2009 - 17:15

From the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida comes this appeal. Click here to do the needful, and see the full appeal below.

If you could help end modern-day slavery in Florida's fields with an email, would you?

Please take a moment to send an email to Florida Governor Charlie Crist, asking him to take a stand against modern-day slavery in our food system.

Just this past December, farm labor supervisors were sentenced in federal court for enslaving tomato pickers, including beating, chaining, and locking them inside a truck at night. Unfortunately, this case is not the only one; since 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted seven cases of slavery involving well over 1,000 farmworkers in Florida. Additional cases are currently under investigation. ... read more »

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Posted on 6 February, 2009 - 13:07

Crooks and Liars have observed this typically dry press release from the United Nations. The short of it is that there was a vote on the right to food at the UN. In favour - 180 countries. Against: The United States.

Seriously. And in a related vote on the right to development, 177 countries voted for. Against: The United States. Abstaining: Canada, Israel.

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Posted on 15 January, 2009 - 05:48

It's Thanksgiving here in the United States. Sarah has shared some tips about how to survive the season sustainably. But, as I've mentioned already, a growing number of people in the US are going hungry. This story, which ran in the Chronicle this week, tells of how gleaning is alive and well in the twenty-first century. ... read more »

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Posted on 25 November, 2008 - 16:41

In case you thought that the whole baby milk saga was over, WomensENews has a article reminding us that corporations are still encouraging women to switch to infant formula, despite abundant evidence that mothers' milk is invariably better. Is it a coincidence that, as Molly M. Ginty notes below, "half of the infant formula sold in the U.S. is distributed by the government to low-income mothers"? Read and decide. ... read more »

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Posted on 21 November, 2008 - 20:58

50 Percent More US Kids Hungry in 2007

By Michael K Sniffen

WASHINGTON (Nov. 17) - Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downturn, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998. ... read more »

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Posted on 21 November, 2008 - 20:16

The mad travel schedule just doesn't seem to let up. So here are a couple of post-cards from the road. First, I was lucky enough to join some of the finest US food justice activists at an event in New York City last week. There were many highlights, all of which you can see here, but the most sustained and deserved applause went to Gerardo Reyes Chávez, a leader and organizer for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). You can hear his speech below.

... read more »

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Posted on 23 October, 2008 - 05:06

Brooklyn Rescue Mission Inc. is a community-based organization in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn that develops creative solutions to food justice, community health and the economic challenges our community endures on a daily basis.

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Posted on 19 October, 2008 - 19:59

I'll not make a habit out of trumpeting upcoming speaking engagements, much less repeating said trumpeting, but for two good reasons, I'm going to make an exception. First, I'll be speaking this Friday at the new California Academy of Sciences and it is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. Above, a picture of the 2.5 acre living roof that Renzo Piano put on top of the building, and crammed with nearly 2 million native plants. The Academy has just opened its doors, and it is just as thoroughly on the inside as it is out.

But, and this is the second reason I'm being a little more vigorous in self-publicising, the good people at Litquake tell me that because the Academy is so new, their ticketing system is still getting up and running. So, for those of you who are in the Bay Area and keen to see the building, as well as hear a fine conversation geared towards thinking about how architecture and food will intersect in the future, the details on how to get in are below. ... read more »

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Posted on 8 October, 2008 - 17:27