This commentary is by Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, and John Sayles, chief executive officer of Vermont Foodbank.
Sept. 28 marked the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years. Elected officials, people who have experienced hunger, advocates, nonprofits and private-sector leaders came together to discuss solutions to the ongoing injustice of hunger.
Far too many in our country know the experience of not having enough food, including many neighbors here in Vermont. Important advancements came from the first conference of this kind, held in 1969, including changes in food and nutrition policy, major expansions of what is now called SNAP/3SquaresVT and School Lunch Program, and the creation of the supplemental feeding program for Women Infants and Children.
These changes made significant headway in eliminating hunger but, by the 1980s, policy changes and program cuts caused a resurgence in hunger nationwide.
The goals and recommendations coming from the 2022 conference offer a new chance to make positive, impactful changes for decades to come — but only if we seize this moment for bold action and solutions centered in equity and justice.
Here in Vermont, more people have experienced hunger this past year than at any other point during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent data collected by the UVM-led National Food Access and Covid Research Team found that two out of every five people in our state have experienced hunger in the past year. This means thousands across the state are struggling to consistently afford the nourishing foods they need and want.
As we face the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and inflation, we applaud the timely focus of the White House on hunger and its root causes and we acknowledge the opportunities this renewed focus offers here in Vermont. Holding the conference is a welcome first step, and we call on the White House to be accountable, and to work with Congress to make the investments and implement the solutions outlined in the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.
Many of the ideas the White House has proposed are tried and tested, and, if implemented, will help to end hunger. We know strategies that work, like permanently expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit and increasing the minimum wage.
The Expanded Child Tax Credit in 2021 kept 5.3 million people above the poverty line and drove child poverty to the lowest level since 1967. Then it ended.
The White House has proposed cost-effective investments in nutrition programs that we know will reduce hunger. These include expanding Summer EBT to ensure families with kids can afford groceries when school is out, support for Meals on Wheels, and expanding access to 3SquaresVT so that more people can use the program, including college students and formerly incarcerated individuals.
But the White House proposal alone is not enough. We can — and should — do more. The White House strategy aims to decrease the number of households going without food, and to cut the number of households struggling to afford enough food, in half. In Vermont, that would mean one in five of us would still be facing hunger.
We have a vision for ending hunger that doesn’t leave behind half of neighbors experiencing hunger. The federal government must act to ensure that federal nutrition programs like SNAP, school meals, and Meals on Wheels can meet the needs of people facing hunger.
● We need a national, permanent universal school meals program.
● We need SNAP benefits to cover the true cost of nutritious food.
● We need investments to help organizations like the Vermont Foodbank meet the unprecedented demand that food shelves and pantries are facing across the state.
● We need to address the root causes of hunger, not just a system that lifts some individuals out of poverty temporarily, and excludes others.
● We need systems that allow everyone to have access to nourishing, dignified food.
● We need to address race-based inequities in access to food, and to ensure our systems don’t require families to make impossible choices in meeting basic needs.
Let’s not let this historic moment go to waste, or the national strategy to gather dust. We are ready, and we are committed to doing the work alongside the federal government, state government, and our partners in the public and private sectors. Together we can end hunger.
