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This book analyzes the impact food aid programmes have had over the past fifty years, assessing the current situation as well as future prospects. Issues such as political expediency, the impact of international trade and exchange rates are put under the microscope to provide the reader with a greater understanding of this important subject matter. This book will prove vital to students of development economics and development studies and those working in the field.

This book chronicles the most essential causes and implications of these trends, which have expanded international food assistance well beyond the simple shipment of donated food aid commodities. We pay particular attention to how these trends shape and are shaped by European Union (EU) and United States (U.S.) food assistance policy and practice, and highlight the principles to which donors can adhere to move international food assistance forward.

This book chronicles the most essential causes and implications of these trends, which have expanded international food assistance well beyond the simple shipment of donated food aid commodities. We pay particular attention to how these trends shape and are shaped by European Union (EU) and United States (U.S.) food assistance policy and practice, and highlight the principles to which donors can adhere to move international food assistance forward.

Publisher description: The 1954 Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, effectively began the modern era of food aid. Over the past fifty years the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been improved. Despite this it remains one of the most misunderstood and controversial instruments of contemporary international policy. Food Aid After Fifty Years explores the motivations and modalities of food aid and examines issues which impinge on its effectiveness. The book utilizes analytical and empirical accounts of food aid to resolve key misunderstandings and explore long standing myths. An alternative strategy is presented for recasting food aid, making it more effective in alleviating poverty, hunger and vulnerability. Food Aid After Fifty Years provides a clear, comprehensive and current explanation of a wide range of issues surrounding food aid and its policy and operations and will prove vital to students of Development Economics and Development Studies and those working in the field.

Food insecurity, a significant stressor for many US families and children, is strongly associated with poverty and increases the risk of adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Communities like the Bronx, disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to job losses and increased reliance on emergency food resources, experience heightened food insecurity and face increased risk of various health conditions, such as asthma. This study aims to investigate the relationship between household food insecurity risk and child health outcomes in the Bronx. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data from the 2021 NYC KIDS, a population-based sample of households with children aged 1-13 years. A total of 1646 households residing in the Bronx were included in the analysis. Descriptive statistics and weighted multivariable logistic regression models were employed to examine the association between food insecurity risk and specified childhood health outcomes. The study revealed a high prevalence of food insecurity risk among children in the Bronx, with over half residing in food-insecure households (58.5%). Household food insecurity risk was significantly associated with increased odds of overweight or obesity (adjusted OR: 1.58, 95% CI:1.01-2.47), as well as mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, adjustment disorders, and learning disorders. These findings underscore the critical need for increased investment in food assistance programs within the Bronx. Despite government assistance efforts, various factors exacerbate food insecurity, including policy changes, disruptions in the supply chain, and elevated food prices. Innovative approaches such as baby bonds, prescription produce programs, paid family leave, child tax credit and guaranteed basic income should be considered to address these limitations and enhance food security in the Bronx. This study provides important insights into the association between household food insecurity risk and child health outcomes in urban, low-income communities, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions to address food insecurity and promote health equity among vulnerable children.

At no time during the Great Depression was the contradiction between agriculture surplus and widespread hunger more wrenchingly graphic than in the government's attempt to raise pork prices through the mass slaughter of miliions of \"unripe\" little pigs. This contradiction was widely perceived as a \"paradox.\" In fact, as Janet Poppendieck makes clear in this newly expanded and updated volume, it was a normal, predictable working of an economic system rendered extreme by the Depression. The notion of paradox, however, captured the imagination of the public and policy makers, and it was to this definition of the problem that surplus commodities distribution programs in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were addressed. This book explains in readable narrative how the New Deal food assistance effort, originally conceived as a relief measure for poor people, became a program designed to raise the incomes of commercial farmers. In a broader sense, the book explains how the New Deal years were formative for food assistance in subsequent administrations; it also examines the performance--or lack of performance--of subsequent in-kind relief programs. Beginning with a brief survey of the history of the American farmer before the depression and the impact of the Depression on farmers, the author describes the development of Hoover assistance programs and the events at the end of that administration that shaped the \"historical moment\" seized by the early New Deal. Poppendieck goes on to analyze the food assistance policies and programs of the Roosevelt years, the particular series of events that culminated in the decision to purchase surplus agriculture products and distribute them to the poor, the institutionalization of this approach, the resutls achieved, and the interest groups formed. The book also looks at the takeover of food assistance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its gradual adaptation for use as a tool in the maintenance of farm income. Utliizing a wide variety of official and unofficial sources, the author reveals with unusual clarity the evolution from a policy directly responsive to the poor to a policy serving mainly democratic needs.

In 2012, nearly 16 million U.S. children, or over one in five, lived in households that were food-insecure, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food.” Even when we control for the effects of other factors correlated with poverty, these children are more likely than others to face a host of health problems, including but not limited to anemia, lower nutrient intake, cognitive problems, higher levels of aggression and anxiety, poorer general health, poorer oral health, and a higher risk of being hospitalized, having asthma, having some birth defects, or experiencing behavioral problems. Many government programs aim explicitly to reduce food insecurity, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). (Other social safety-net programs—for example, the Earned Income Tax Credit—can also help alleviate food insecurity by increasing household income.) The fact that food insecurity remains so high even though the government spent over $100 billion on the various federal food-assistance programs in fiscal year 2012 poses a significant policy challenge. Food insecurity rates remain stubbornly high for a number of reasons. One is that we don’t fully understand what causes food insecurity or how food assistance and other programs can help alleviate it. Food insecurity has been researched extensively, and this research has helped policy makers and program administrators better address the problem. However, relatively little research has looked at what causes food insecurity among children in the first place, or the effectiveness of public policies, especially on more severe forms of food hardship. In this policy report, we highlight new research that seeks to fill this gap. Much of this work comes from the Research Program on Childhood Hunger at the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, which was underwritten by the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

We present a 50-year historical perspective of the nation's antipoverty efforts, describing the evolution of policy during four key periods since 1965. Over this half-century, the initial heavy reliance on cash income support to poor families has eroded; increases in public support came largely in the form of in-kind (e.g., Food Stamps) and tax-related (e.g., the Earned Income Tax Credit) benefits. Work support and the supplementation of earnings substituted for direct support. These shifts eroded the safety net for the most disadvantaged in American society. Three poverty-related analytical developments are also descnbed. The rise of the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)—taking account of noncash and tax-related benefits—has corrected some of the serious weaknesses of the official poverty measure (OPM). The SPM measure indicates that the poverty rate has declined over time, rather than being essentially flat as the OPM implies. We also present snapshots of the composition of the poor population in the United States using both the OPM and the SPM, showing progress in reducing poverty overall and among specific socioeconomic subgroups since the beginning of the War on Poverty. Finally, we document the expenditure levels of numerous antipoverty programs that have accompanied the several phases of poverty policy and describe the effect of these efforts on the level of poverty. Although the effectiveness of government antipoverty transfers is debated, our findings indicate that the growth of antipoverty policies has reduced the overall level of poverty, with substantial reductions among the elderly, disabled, and blacks. However, the poverty rates for children, especially those living in single-parent families, and families headed by a low-skill, low-education person, have increased. Rates of deep poverty (families living with less than one-half of the poverty line) for the nonelderly population have not decreased, reflecting both the increasing labor market difficulties faced by the low-skill population and the tilt of means-tested benefits away from the poorest of the poor.

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Rescue Plan (2021) allowed state agencies of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) the option of temporarily increasing the Cash-Value Benefit (CVB) for fruit and vegetable (FV) purchases. To examine the impact of this enhancement on WIC caregiver experience, the MA WIC State Office invited 4600 randomly selected MA WIC caregivers to complete an online survey (February–March 2022). Eligible adults had at least one child, had been enrolled at least a year, and were aware of the increase. Of those who opened the screener (n = 545), 58.9% completed it (n = 321). We calculated the frequencies of reporting increased FV outcomes and tested whether responses differed by race/ethnicity, market access, and food security. Most caregivers perceived the CVB increase to benefit FV purchasing (amount and quality, 71.0% and 55.5%), FV consumption (offered to children and personally consumed, 70.1% and 63.2%), and satisfaction with the WIC food package (37.1% reported improved satisfaction, pre- vs. post-increase). Probability of reporting improved outcomes was not found to differ by race/ethnicity, market access, or food security. CVB increases may pose important implications for dietary behaviors and satisfaction with WIC. Policymakers should consider making this increase permanent.