A Question of Balance
The 2012 Hunger Report recommends ways for the federal government to better respond to the agriculture and nutrition challenges of today and tomorrow.
With one in four Americans participating in a federal nutrition program, the nation’s nutrition and farm policies absolutely need to be aligned. Farm policy should significantly increase production of healthy foods. But farm policies alone can’t automatically improve nutrition among low-income families. Nutrition programs need to do more than provide food for hungry people; they must ensure that healthy food is available to all.
The 2012 Hunger Report recommends ways for U.S. development assistance and food aid programs to work together more efficiently. Food aid programs should follow the lead of Feed the Future—the new U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative—by focusing more deliberately on improving nutrition outcomes for the most vulnerable people, especially pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of 2. This will help achieve the strongest possible nutrition outcomes with the limited resources available.
On the eve of 2012, Congress is negotiating dramatic cuts in the federal budget. Cuts to programs designed to overcome the effects of poverty are in neither the short- nor the long-term interests of the nation. The recommendations in the 2012 Hunger Report are all the more relevant because the budget decisions are so urgent.
People may disagree about what items in the federal budget are necessary for the public good, but we take for granted that it’s in everyone’s interest for the government to fight hunger. In fact, there should be zero tolerance for hunger—no matter what the size, ideology, or other responsibilities of the government may be, it must do what is necessary to keep people from going hungry.
Global hunger and U.S. hunger rarely converge as closely as they do in the farm bill. Normally, change in food and farm policy occurs incrementally. The 2012 Hunger Report calls for bolder, more determined thinking about how U.S. food and farm policies can meet the global and domestic challenges of the 21st century.
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