Eve here. Trump’s economic policy appears to be designed to produce appetitions at the level of Russia in the 1990s, warning him to promote grubs of plutocratic assets. We have previously posted about the impact of Trump Cuts on food baths in New York City. This punitive policy now has scholarships to the national narrative.
More Hunger is part of this “improving the population” picture. Of course, hunger is malnutrition, particularly working with children. That’s not a positive for brain development and having a skilled workforce.
KFF Health News correspondent Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez previously worked for the Snowfall Independent. Originally published on KFF Health News
Northern Nevada Food Bank produces other items to partner with organizations across the region. Food Bank serves an average of 160,000 people a month, up 76% from its customers prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. (Alamel Wheeler)
The food bank shortage caused by high demand and reductions in federal aid programs has small community subsidies that span Idaho and Nevada grow their own food.
For those who live in Duck Valley, a reservation of around 1,000 people, home to Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, there is only one grocery store that is too expensive for many, and Bull Chief says he is the local director of the Federal Food Distribution Program for Tribes. The next grocery story is located in Mountain Home, Idaho and Elko, Nevada, more than 10,000 people apart. And the troubles of local food banks are reflected in many people across the country, narrowing between growing needs and reduced aid.
Reggie Premo, a community outreach specialist at the University of Nevada Extension, raised cow ranch and farm alfalfa in Duck Valley. I am running workshops to teach residents to grow production. Premo said it was an interest from the state’s tribal leaders who are worried about the high costs while living in the food desert.
“We’re just trying to get back to the way it was in its old state,” Premo said, “when the family was growing their garden.”
Food bank managers across the country say their supplies have risen and tense since Covid Pandemic Emergency acquired benefits for its nutrition support program two years ago and rushed food prices. Now, they say the demand is made up of recent cuts in federal establishment to food distribution programs that supply classic foods to pantry across the country.
In March, the US Department of Agriculture cut $500 million from the emergency food aid program that purchases food from domestic producers and sends it to pantry nationwide. The program expects more than 20% of distribution by feeding America, a nonprofit that serves a network of over 200 food baths and 60,000 meal programs.
The conflict between increasing demand and support for a decline is particularly problematic for rural communities. In rural communities, federal programs could cover more than 50% of food supplements that are struggling, said Vince Hall, Feeding America’s Chief Government Affairs Officer. Deepening the challenges of local food aid organizations has resulted in the Trump administration hitting another $500 million from the USDA Local Food Purchase Co-op Agreement program, which helps state, tribal and territorial governments buy fresh food from nearby producers.
“The urgency of this crisis cannot be overstated,” Hall said, adding that the emergency food aid program is “rural American hunger lifeline.”
Farmers who benefited from the USDA program that distributed their products to food banks and schools will also become a problem. Bill Green is the executive director of the Southeast Region of Common Market, a nonprofit that links farmers to organizations in the Mid-Atlantic, southeast Texas and the Great Lakes. Green said his organization cannot fill the gap left by federal cuts, but he hopes that subschools and other Institts will continue to buy purchases from those farmers, even after federal support has dried up.
“I think that food access challenge has only gotten worse, I think I just found the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
For example, the Heartland Food Bank in Omaha, Nebraska has experienced four times the demand this year, according to Stephanie Sullivan, assistant director of marketing and communications. The organization expects to provide food to 580,000 households across 93 counties serving Nebraska and Western Iowa, this fiscal year, she said.
“The bese numbers should be a wake-up call for all of us,” Sullivan said.
Texas’ South Plains Food Bank has distributed around 121,000 food boxes this year to those in need in 19 counties serving it, sharing an average of 90,000 a year before the pandemic. Dina Jeffries CEO said the organization currently serves around 25% of people, while also owing decod funds and food burdens.
In Nevada, food banks serving northern communities in the state, including Duck Valley Reservation’s Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, provide food to an average of 160,000 people per month. This is 76% higher than customers prior to the pandemic, and the need continues to grow, said Jocelyn Rentlip, director of marketing and communications at a food bank in northern Nevada.
One of the most troublesome things for food banks is that USDA products shipped for local distribution are foods that donations usually cover – eggs, dairy products, meat, and more.
“It’s really valuable food for our neighbors,” she said. “It’s very difficult to exchange proteins.”
For the first time, 40% of people who were helping out from the food bank during the pandemic did so, Hall said. “Many of these families have now come to look at their neighbors’ food banks, not as emergency resources, but as a dignified element of the mouth-like budget equation.”
In 2023, the latest USDA data, approximately 47 million people lived in food-affected households.
The Bull Chief, who also longs a small food pantry on a Duck Valley reservation, spoke about a world drive to Elko to pick up food distributed by a food bank in northern Nevada. However, there are not many choices from submarines. In March, the Food Pantry reduced its operations to just two weeks a month. She said they have to gain weight, whether it’s worth spending money on gas to pick up small amounts of food.
When the food pantry opened in 2020, Bull chief said he helped 10-20 households a month. That number is now over 60 and consists of a wide range of community members – teenagers are fresh in high school, living with themselves, elders and people who don’t have permanent housing or jobs. She said providing small amounts of food will help households communicate between pay and snap benefit deposits.
“What do they need to survive that month,” Bullchief said.
Food banks click on the growing needs and federal cuts means that the system is hardly resilient, Hall said. Additional challenges, such as economic delays, changes to polls for snaps and other federal nutrition programs, or natural disasters, could prevent food banks from meeting their needs.
The budget resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in April would require a net funding cut of $1.7 trillion, targeting anti-hung advocate Fefer Snap Coud. Many people living in the country’s countryside can be affected because they rely more on snaps than urban people due to their higher poverty rates.
The extension of the federal 2018 farm bill that continues through September 30th included roughly $450 million for this year’s emergency food aid program. But the remaining funds won’t offset the cuts, Hall said. He hopes lawmakers will pass a new farm bill this year with enough money to do so.
“We don’t have a food shortage,” he said. “We lack political will.”
