In a study published in April, from The Hope Center, the stats on food insecurity among college students were grim. Almost half of students in two-year colleges and about 2 out of 5 at four-year colleges experience some level of food insecurity. Hungry kids are not just an issue of grade and secondary schools.
I became aware of this issue when we gathered emergency food providers, networkers and advocates in the wake of the October 2017 fires here. I had no idea that Santa Rosa Junior College had a food pantry for students. Around the same time, a woman I chatted with at an activist event in Courthouse Square reported that members of the football team at the JC did not have an adequate diet. Scholastic and athletic performance are impaired when there isn't adequate nutritious food.
Some students may not be aware that they are eligible for SNAP - called CalFresh here.
Last month Senator Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Lawson, Democrat of Florida, introduced legislation which could help, the College Student Hunger Act.
The Government Accounting Office has also been studying food insecurity on campus. While their estimate of the severity of the problem is lower - around 30% of students at risk - they found that "almost 2 million at-risk students who are potentially eligible for SNAP did not receive benefits in 2016."
The act expands the criteria of eligibility for SNAP for students, provides for education and outreach about SNAP on campuses, and calls for pilot projects to make SNAP more useful in student dining halls and the like.
Senator Warren's press release provides the information and links you need to learn more if you wish to advocate for this bill with your senators or congress-members. If they have signed on as co-sponsors - many have - be sure to thank them.
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-warren-and-representative-lawson-introduce-the-college-student-hunger-act-of-2019-to-address-hunger-on-college-campuses
And one more note. This is also a problem on elite campuses for students from low income families. When colleges pause for spring vacation, for example, dining halls close. If you can't afford to travel home and don't have a source of ready cash, even a full tuition, room and board scholarship doesn't result in a full belly.
Showing posts with label SNAP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SNAP. Show all posts
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Thursday, January 3, 2013
What didn't happen with the Farm Bill
Part of the cliff-avoidance legislative package left much of our agriculture sector still standing on the edge.
The 2008 Farm Bill was renewed until September. Doesn't sound bad until you realize that no change is a reactionary move. The kinds of programs we'd hoped to see more of - in support of small farms, conservation, generational transition among farmers, etc. aren't going to happen any time soon. Subsidies of conventional crops, some of which are now seen as not much needed even by the farmers, will continue.
Here's a short story from this morning on NPR
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/03/168515101/farmers-frustrated-by-farm-bill-extension
Why did this happen? Because even though the Sentate passed a new and more progressive farm bill in early summer, and the House Agriculture community moved it along, House leadership failed to bring it to the floor. So are all those rural folks going to continue to vote Republican? Why?
Many ag advocacy organizations worked for a modified extension. We here of the Interfaith Sustainable Agriculture Collaborative signed on. But it just didn't have the traction needed.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition called the extension of the 2008 bill "awful" - which I think is more disparaging than using profanity would have been.
A quick internet search revealed that both sustainable and conventional agriculture leadership are complaining. Conventional dairy farmers got caught in the price fixing bind. Consumers may celebrate that milk prices do not rise, but it's inevitable that they will eventually as more dairymen and women go out of business.
A few useful programs in the 2008 bill had been unfunded since the fall - but they were refunded by this extension. Some of them are even programs that help reduce negative environmental impacts of farming. And SNAP is fully funded again for now, though the fiscal reactionaries are breathing fire in its direction.
The 2008 Farm Bill was renewed until September. Doesn't sound bad until you realize that no change is a reactionary move. The kinds of programs we'd hoped to see more of - in support of small farms, conservation, generational transition among farmers, etc. aren't going to happen any time soon. Subsidies of conventional crops, some of which are now seen as not much needed even by the farmers, will continue.
Here's a short story from this morning on NPR
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/03/168515101/farmers-frustrated-by-farm-bill-extension
Why did this happen? Because even though the Sentate passed a new and more progressive farm bill in early summer, and the House Agriculture community moved it along, House leadership failed to bring it to the floor. So are all those rural folks going to continue to vote Republican? Why?
Many ag advocacy organizations worked for a modified extension. We here of the Interfaith Sustainable Agriculture Collaborative signed on. But it just didn't have the traction needed.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition called the extension of the 2008 bill "awful" - which I think is more disparaging than using profanity would have been.
A quick internet search revealed that both sustainable and conventional agriculture leadership are complaining. Conventional dairy farmers got caught in the price fixing bind. Consumers may celebrate that milk prices do not rise, but it's inevitable that they will eventually as more dairymen and women go out of business.
A few useful programs in the 2008 bill had been unfunded since the fall - but they were refunded by this extension. Some of them are even programs that help reduce negative environmental impacts of farming. And SNAP is fully funded again for now, though the fiscal reactionaries are breathing fire in its direction.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Why we need SNAP
Speaking of NPR, yesterday on the way to church I listened to a story about Food Stamps.
How telling is it that this story was reported by a business reporter?
While she gave a good summary of the increase in the use of SNAP, as the program is now called, and all that in anticipation of more discouraging figures to be released this week, I found her analysis pretty ignorant.
It is not rising prices that necessitate the increased use of SNAP in the United States, but the high cost of everything else, high unemployment and sinking real wages, and the widening gap between rich and poor, including the working poor.
In our country working families spend as little as 9% of their income on food. The poor may spend a greater percentage, but nothing like the 50% or more that people in the poorest countries spend on nourishment.
Think about this: If the cost of grain, let's say corn, doubles, then for people in the two-thirds world, who are apt to buy the corn and grind it themselves as a staple food, for porridge or tortillas, the cost of food doubles. But for people in this country, who buy corn in the form of breakfast cereal, where only 10%, let's say, of the cost of a box of cereal actually goes for the corn in all its forms, then the cost of a $3 box of cereal becomes $3.30, only a 10% increase.
Our economic woes and inequities, not world food prices, are largely responsible for the need for supplements to people's incomes - which we give in the form of food assistance.
The reporter also opines that tax payers are not happy with putting food on other people's tables. Do those tax payers think about how they are supporting commodity crops (that corn again) which make their own grocery bill less expensive, and yield some of the foods which contribute to the ills driving up health care costs - also partially funded by their taxes. An ill nourished nation is a drain on all our pocketbooks in so many ways. Resenting helping some of our neighbors to eat a little bit better seems penny wise and pound foolish, nevermind mean spirited.
How telling is it that this story was reported by a business reporter?
While she gave a good summary of the increase in the use of SNAP, as the program is now called, and all that in anticipation of more discouraging figures to be released this week, I found her analysis pretty ignorant.
It is not rising prices that necessitate the increased use of SNAP in the United States, but the high cost of everything else, high unemployment and sinking real wages, and the widening gap between rich and poor, including the working poor.
In our country working families spend as little as 9% of their income on food. The poor may spend a greater percentage, but nothing like the 50% or more that people in the poorest countries spend on nourishment.
Think about this: If the cost of grain, let's say corn, doubles, then for people in the two-thirds world, who are apt to buy the corn and grind it themselves as a staple food, for porridge or tortillas, the cost of food doubles. But for people in this country, who buy corn in the form of breakfast cereal, where only 10%, let's say, of the cost of a box of cereal actually goes for the corn in all its forms, then the cost of a $3 box of cereal becomes $3.30, only a 10% increase.
Our economic woes and inequities, not world food prices, are largely responsible for the need for supplements to people's incomes - which we give in the form of food assistance.
The reporter also opines that tax payers are not happy with putting food on other people's tables. Do those tax payers think about how they are supporting commodity crops (that corn again) which make their own grocery bill less expensive, and yield some of the foods which contribute to the ills driving up health care costs - also partially funded by their taxes. An ill nourished nation is a drain on all our pocketbooks in so many ways. Resenting helping some of our neighbors to eat a little bit better seems penny wise and pound foolish, nevermind mean spirited.
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