US Agribusiness Hasn't Ended Hunger at Home

Statement to the Press on Hunger and Food Insecurity in California
By Michelle Mascarenhas
June 21, 2003
Sacramento, California

I’m here this week with other members of the California Food and Justice Coalition to present a side of the US food system that is unlikely to be represented inside the US-sponsored conference over the next few days. We’re calling on the U.S. government to support the right of family farmers to grow food for local consumption and the right of all consumers to healthy food at home and abroad.

The U.S. government is trying to export an agricultural system that doesn’t work in California and won’t work abroad.

Even in a land of plenty, poverty and lack of access to food still leaves tens of millions of people in the U.S. at risk of hunger every day. Despite the fact that California leads the nation in food production, more than sixteen percent of Californians—6.4 million people—live in households that experience hunger or food insecurity. The problem is concentrated amongst children and communities of color.

In a recent press release, Ann Veneman, Secretary of the USDA “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to ending global hunger and poverty.” If they are really committed to ending hunger and poverty, why not demonstrate that commitment right here at home?

According to the Sacramento Hunger Commission, nearly 170,000 Sacramento residents live in poverty, that's 14 percent of the population. Of those, almost 40 percent are not getting the food stamp assistance they are eligible for because of red tape, stigma, and lack of promotion and are at risk of hunger.

There is more than enough food in the American food supply to feed every man, woman, and child many times over but the will and resources to distribute that food are withheld.

To address these and other major problems in the U.S. food system, family farmers and consumers are banding together to develop community-based food systems which put people and the environment first.

According to the USDA, nationwide, the number of farmers’ markets has increased by over 80% since 1994. And millions of low-income people can use food stamps, WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) and senior coupons to purchase farm produce. Right here in the Sacramento area, there are at least four vibrant community gardens and two new ones sprouting up.

Due to the hard work of hundreds of people and organizations, more than half a million children can now access locally-grown farm produce through farm to school programs in over 75 school districts across the country.

I’ve worked on strategies like these for the past decade and know that while the community support is there, government policies often put up barriers. Yet these are the kinds of locally-based, community-owned solutions that the U.S. administration should be supporting at home and abroad. They provide healthy, affordable food to people of all incomes and support sustainable, productive farms.

We know the problems of hunger and food insecurity in Sacramento, California, and the U.S. have not been addressed despite the massive supply of food in this country because U.S. corporations, supported by government policies, have put profit before human need.

Therefore, along with many of my colleagues in the California Food and Justice Coalition, I urge U.S. government to support the right of family farmers to grow food for local consumption and the right of all people to obtain healthy food -- at home and abroad. We call on the USDA, US State Department, and USAID to let the voices of poor people, family farmers, and U.S. consumers be heard inside what should be a public meeting next week.


Michelle Mascarenhas is a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a program of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Jefferson Institute.
(415) 929-8867
cell (media calls only) 415-359-7324
mlm [at] sonic.net

Web Resources:
http://www.foodsecurity.org
http://www.uepi.oxy.edu/cfj
http://www.foodandsocietyfellows.org
http://www.ricyouth.org