NOVEMBER 2021.VOL. 21, NO. 11. PORTLAND, MAINE.
PORTLAND’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER. FREE!
New Hunger Data Reveals Mixed Results for Maine By Tony Zeli
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its 2020 report on Household Food Security. The news for Maine is mixed. Overall, there are fewer food insecure households in Maine, but the number is high and extreme food insecurity is persistent.
FOOD INSECURITY DEFINED The USDA considers social and economic factors in determining how food secure a household is. Hunger is real, but it is not a statistic that the government has tracked since 2006. The food security status of each household lies somewhere along a range from high to very low food security. • High food security households have no problems accessing food. • Marginal food security households have problems at times or anxiety about accessing adequate food, but do not reduce the quality and variety of their food. • Low food security households do reduce the quality and variety of their diets, but do not experience a disruption in the amount of food or their normal eating patterns. • Very low food security households experience disrupted eating patterns and less food due to a lack of resources. USDA describes households with high or marginal food security as food secure and households with low or very low food security as food insecure.
Food Insecurity in Maine
specify how Maine’s food insecurity rates differ across racial and other demographic lines, we know that Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color experienced significant growth in need over the past year,” says Miale.
Aid Helps, More Is Needed A food distribution outside of Reiche Community School. -WEN file photos by Tony Zeli In Maine, the overall food insecurity rate has dipped to 11.4 percent in the 2018-2020 average compared to 14.4 percent in the 2015-17 average. This is great news, but Maine is still doing worse than the national average. The US food insecurity rate is 10.7 percent.
Dwindling reserves on the shelves at a Portland food pantry.
Also from the report, Maine ranks fifth in the nation for very low food security rates at 5.5 percent. As such, more The new data from the USDA indithan 31,000 Maine households fall into cates that emergency pandemic aid helped. this concerning category. Expansions to the Supplemental Nutrition Further, Kristen Miale, president of Assistance Program (SNAP) and school Good Shepherd Food Bank warns that the nutrition programming helped avoid cataoverall improved numbers for Maine may strophic rates of food insecurity in the US. not tell the whole story. “The USDA data Indeed, the global numbers for last year isn’t exactly congruent with what we’re are staggering. It’s estimated that between seeing on the ground. Our network of 720 and 811 million people in the world five hundred partners increased its meal faced hunger in 2020. distribution by 16 percent during our last “Hunger and malnutrition rates have fiscal year, so the demand is clearly there,” been on the rise for years, and the panMiale says. demic has significantly exacerbated this The USDA report also shows na- problem here in the US and around the tional food insecurity rates improved for world,” says Congresswoman Chellie Pinsome sub-populations while worsening gree, who introduced a resolution to desfor others. In particular, Black and Latino ignate October 16th as World Food Day. households had higher-than-average rates “Food security is a human right, and we of food insecurity, as did households with must fight to increase access to healthy children. “While the new data does not food, reduce food waste, and acknowledge
A small sampling of the fresh fruit and vegetables and seemingly countless numbers of eggs distributed at a single lakes region food pantry event. the scale of the problem,” says Pingree. “The charitable food network is here to fill the void in the federal and state safety net. When those programs are not funded sufficiently, our network is on the hamster wheel of providing more meals each year,” says Miale of Good Shepherd Food Bank. “We can and will grow our nutritious food distribution to meet the urgent need of Mainers today, just like we did over the past year. Yet, we can also close Maine’s meal gap by advocating for policies and public/private partnerships that strengthen the safety net and address the root causes of hunger and poverty to reduce the demand on food pantries and meal sites across the state.” Tony Zeli is publisher and editor. Contact him at thewestendnews@gmail. com.
Words In Words By Rosanne Graef
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