Report shows 35m Americans going hungryBy North America...

Report shows 35m Americans going hungry
By North America correspondent Michael Rowland

Posted 1 hour 37 minutes ago


'Food insecurity':
The United States may be the richest country in the world, but more and more Americans are struggling to put food on their tables.

It has been revealed that more than 35 million Americans went hungry last year.

That's 400,000 more than in 2005.

Each year the US Government puts out a report on what it euphemistically calls 'household food security'.

Being food-insecure, in government parlance, is what most others would call going hungry.

Jean McDaniel is with the Agriculture Department's food and nutrition service.

"Around 11 per cent of people live in households where they may not have enough money to put adequate food on the table," she said.

That's about 35.5 million Americans.

Among them are 11 million who say their situation is so grim they sometimes don't eat for an entire day because they can't afford to.

Hunger is an everyday reality for 12 million American children.

So why does the world's richest nation have so many people in such dire straits?

Ms McDaniel says hunger is very much a hidden problem.

"When you walk by people who may be hungry, it's not necessarily evident that they're hungry," she said.

"This is something that low-income people don't talk about a great deal."

The US spends more than $60 billion per year on food assistance programs. Despite this spending, Eric Munoz from advocacy group Bread for the World says the problem seems to be entrenched.

"The fact that we hardly saw any drop at all - really a stagnant number of hungry people in the United States - is quite disappointing," he said.

"Frankly, 35 million people hungry in the United States is morally outrageous."


Challenges for homeless

The latest figures do not include the estimated 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given day.

Charities trying to feed those living on the streets are facing bigger obstacles.

Tulene Ozdeger is with the National Law Centre on Homelessness and Poverty.

"More and more cities are passing laws that make it illegal to share food with people who are homeless or impose permiting [sic] requirements, and cities use those permiting requirements to prevent groups from sharing food," she said.

"Unfortunately, this has become a national trend happening all around the country."

She says in many US cities people can feed squirrels or birds without any penalty but not the homeless people nearby.

Exactly.
The challenges facing the hungry in America have never been more acute.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2092544.htm

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As California battles wind-whipped wildfires, vast areas of the US are struggling with an epic drought that has millions of people fearing their taps could run dry.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/america-battles-epic-drought/2007/10/28/1193506341035.html

US DROUGHT MONITOR NOVEMBER 13th 2007
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html