Even though we’re a developed country, the US does struggle with hunger much more than you’d think, and thousands of low-income Americans go to bed hungry every single day.
This is particularly true for families with infants and school-age children, and several programs have been created particularly to deal with this demographic.
Despite this, certain rural areas in the US still struggle with providing enough food to the residents, as there are fewer food retailers in the area, causing something that is referred to as a food desert.
This means that a certain area has next to no access to fresh, nutritious food all year round, and ironically enough, this tends to happen in areas with a lot of farmland the most.
Of course, the existence of a food desert isn’t the only thing causing hunger to exist in rural areas, and it’s exactly why food assistance programs exist.
The root cause
For the most part, hunger in rural areas is caused by the fact that the shoppers are forced to rely on fairly expensive food that is much less nutritious and healthy, such as gas station or convenience store meals.
Even when talking about actually healthy food, it involves a long drive to the supermarket or store which usually isn’t within walking distance, sometimes even in a different town, which can place a financial burden on many low-income families.
Finding a store that has both milk, fresh produce, and all the other staples of a healthy diet can be tough, and rural shoppers sometimes even have to visit several stores before completing their grocery shopping, causing their expenses to be even greater.
This creates a lot of food insecurity, which leads to unpredictable and poor health outcomes that could’ve been easily avoided too.
Hunger in the US
Data obtained through research by the US Department of Agriculture found that food insecurity is strongly tied to a number of different health issues Americans face every single day.
From chronic diseases to poor health conditions that disproportionally affect residents of rural areas, hunger is a major issue that’s often overlooked.
Food insecurity causes other issues as well if left unchecked, ranging from difficulties with learning and development to lower concentration, lack of productivity, physical and mental degradation, and a lower quality of family life.
Oftentimes, this is labeled as a community issue, as the many social and economic factors of a community greatly contribute to the availability of healthy and nutritious food and how affordable it is, or how difficult it may be for residents of a certain area to acquire it given their level of income.
Cooperative grocery stores
As a means of dealing with the existing issue of food deserts, certain grocery stores have doubled down on helping the community, and have started providing other services, such as electricity or access to a phone line.
Usually, these stores are run by the community itself, making it easier for residents in rural areas struggling to find nutritious and healthy food without having to travel every day for their groceries.
The members running a cooperative store are both customers and owners, and these grocery stores are usually structured like a corporation, meaning that anyone can buy shares of the company in order to get a small cut of the revenue.
This helps reduce the financial burden of providing food for one’s family while also getting access to certain other services that would normally be unaffordable for most living in said rural area.
Without the community coming together like this, rural areas would be suffering from hunger much more than they already do.
Food pantries and government programs
While SNAP may be effective in more urban areas, it’s far less represented in rural areas of the country, mainly due to the fact that there are fewer stores participating in the program.
This makes it harder to spend the funds deposited in one’s EBT card, effectively obsoleting access to the program for the beneficiary.
However, food pantries are still a thing, and with a constant supply of nutritious food funded by the federal government, low-income Americans in rural areas can rest easy knowing they’ll have food on the table.
For rural communities, a more common thing is a food pantry truck, as it’s much easier to distribute the food to low-income families that need it rather than having them travel to the food pantry themselves, further inconveniencing them.
The Care and Share Food Bank program supplies some of these food trucks in rural areas of the country, and they’ve greatly contributed to solving hunger in rural communities of South Colorado.
Bottom line
Hunger is ever-present in the world, and it’s an issue we’ll have a hard time solving in its entirety.
However, we can solve things one step at a time, and by tackling hunger in the US, we can slowly move toward world hunger, and while it may sound unrealistic, one day, every single man, woman, and child will not have to go to bed hungry.