The Millennium Declaration to End Hunger in America

Declaration

By: Brandeis University, The Heller Center for Social Policy and Management: Institute on Assets and Social Policy—Center on Hunger and Poverty

Date: June 2003

Source: Center on Hunger and Poverty. " The Millennium Declaration to End Hunger in America" <http://www.centeronhunger.org/pdf/millenniumdeclaration.pdf> (accessed June 24, 2006).

About the Author: The Center on Hunger and Poverty, a division of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP), is a nonprofit organization associated with several projects on hunger and poverty across the United States. Its key activities include policy analysis, public education initiatives, and assistance enforcing legislation.

INTRODUCTION

Hunger and poverty issues in the United States are quite distinct from those in developing and under-developed countries. Many developing nations experience frequent famines and other natural calamities, which lead to acute malnutrition. Hunger in a developed country such as the United States is usually a consequence of poverty, unemployment, high costs, and low financial resources. The U.S. Census bureau reported that in 2001, thirty million people experienced hunger or food insecurity (inability to meet basic nutritional needs). These included families below the official poverty line, and those headed by single women, Hispanics, or African-Americans.

High rates of adult and childhood obesity are also related to hunger and low-income status. Even though hunger would seem not to be associated with obesity, research indicates a direct correlation between the two. For those with limited resources, low-nutrition, high-calorie junk food is cheap and easily available. The Center on Hunger and Poverty has found that a significant number of low-income individuals are obese or overweight, and the Interagency Board for Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research reported that poor adults are more likely to be obese than those with adequate means. Other reasons include the need to maximize caloric intake and overeating when food is available. Consequently, many poor people who are obese may actually be malnourished.

In a comprehensive national survey of emergency feeding programs, America's Second Harvest, a nonprofit hunger relief organization, found that an increase in the number of households seeking 'emergency' food at feeding programs, food pantries, and soup kitchens in the late 1990s. Although the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, in 2003 more than thirty-six million people, including thirteen million children, experienced hunger, an increase of six million in two years.

According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), in the school year ending in 2003 an average of 8.2 million children participated in the school breakfast program each day—6.8 million of them belonged to low-income households. Sixteen million low-income children participated in the national school lunch program the same year. Further, a FRAC national survey of nutritional risk determined that elderly people living in low-income households had lower nutrient intakes than those in higher-income households.

Following the 1996 World Food Summit, the U.S. government initiated the 'Healthy People 2010' campaign aimed at cutting the nation's food insecurity in half by 2010. On an international level, in September 2000, 147 leaders and heads of United Nations members (including the United States) affirmed a set of international development goals known as the 'Millennium Development Goals' (MDGs), part of the U.N. Millennium Declaration. Among other issues, the declaration urged member nations to address issues of hunger, poverty, and health.

In December 2003, the National Anti-Hunger Organizations (NAHO), an association of hunger relief organizations in the United States, issued the Millennium Declaration to End Hunger in America, calling upon leaders and citizens to end hunger in America. The declaration, excerpted in the primary source, outlines the causes and costs of hunger in the United States. It also recommends solutions to end hunger in the nation by 2015.

PRIMARY SOURCE

The Millennium Declaration to End Hunger in America

We call upon our nation's leaders and all people to join together to end hunger in America.

America carries the wound of more than 30 million people—more than 12 million of them children—whose households cannot afford an adequate and balanced diet. Hunger should have no place at our table. It is inconsistent with our commitment to human rights and objectionable to the American values of fairness, opportunity, family, and community.

Our nation is committed to leaving no child behind. But children who are hungry cannot keep up. They cannot develop and thrive; they cannot learn or play with energy and enthusiasm. Hunger stunts the physical, mental and emotional growth of many of our children, and stains the soul of America.

Many different points of view unite us in this declaration. Some of us work to end hunger because of deeply held religious beliefs. Others are motivated by hunger's impact on health and cognitive development. Still others are driven by the long-term economic, human and ethical costs of hunger. But all of us are moved by the recognition that America's moral authority in the world is undermined by so much hunger in our midst. Regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, we share the conviction that we as a nation must act to end hunger—now.

Ending hunger is a two-step process. We can make rapid progress by expanding and improving effective initiatives like public nutrition programs. This, combined with strengthened community-based efforts, has the capacity to feed all in need. But we need to go even further, to attack the root causes of hunger.

Our nation's own past experience, and the successes of other countries, demonstrate that this two-pronged strategy can work.

Ending hunger

America made great progress in reducing hunger during the 1960s and 1970s, as the economy grew and the nation built strong public nutrition programs—food stamps, school lunches and breakfasts, summer food, WIC, and elderly nutrition programs. These vital programs provide the fuel for children to develop and learn, and for adults to succeed at work and as parents.

As a country we did not sustain that momentum. One response has been the emergence of a strong private anti-hunger sector: food banks, pantries, soup kitchens, food rescue and other emergency feeding programs have become a key bulwark against hunger for many Americans. Volunteers, businesses, non-profits and religious organizations now help millions of needy Americans put food on their table.

But emergency feeding programs alone cannot end hunger. They cannot reach the scale essential to address the desperate need many people face, nor can they provide long-term security for the families they serve. Our country's experience over the past 20 years shows that charity can fill gaps and ameliorate urgent needs. But charity cannot match the capacity of government to protect against hunger, nor the capacity of the private sector to foster economic growth and provide living wages.

Ending hunger requires a sustained public commitment to improve federal nutrition programs, and to reduce red tape to reach every household and every individual in need:

• We can begin with the millions of at-risk children who start their school days without food, or who miss meals during the summer months, when they lose access to regular year school meal programs. Expanding programs for school lunch, breakfast, summer food, after-school meals for school age children, and child care food and WIC for pre-schoolers, is essential, cost-effective and a moral imperative.
• The food stamp program, the cornerstone of the nation's hunger programs, has the capacity to wipe out hunger for millions of families. We should reduce the red tape that often keeps working families and others from getting essential food stamp help. And the help families get should be enough so they do not run out of food toward the end of each month.
• We also must better protect elderly citizens whose frail bodies and meager incomes make them susceptible to hunger and nutrition-related diseases. Improving food stamps, home delivered meals, congregate feeding programs, and commodity donations will ensure that increasing age does not also mean an empty cupboard.

These and related nutrition programs can become readily available through the support of innovative community efforts across our country. And all programs can be re-woven to deliver healthy, nutritious meals to insure an end to hunger in America.

Ending the cause of hunger

The root cause of hunger is a lack of adequate purchasing power in millions of households. When individuals and families do not have the resources to buy enough food, hunger results. As a nation we must encourage work and also ensure all who work that the results of their labor will be sufficient to provide for the basic needs of their families. For those unemployed or disabled, or too old or young to support themselves, other means can ensure sufficient income to protect them from hunger.

Many steps can be taken to help families achieve independence and security: a strong economy; an adequate minimum wage that, like the one a generation ago, lifts a small family out of poverty; private and public sector provision of jobs and job training; strategies to create and increase assets among working families; social insurance protection for the unemployed and retired; and child care, refundable tax credits, food stamps, and health insurance that reward work efforts of families trying to make ends meet.

A sustained and comprehensive investment in the efforts of all American families will ensure that inadequate income never again results in lack of needed nutrition for the children and adults of our country.

Taking these steps to reward work and effort, along with the ready availability of nutritious food programs, will ensure that residents of the United States are not hungry tomorrow or any time in the future. Ending hunger in America will reduce dramatically the deprivation that currently saps the lives of so many of our children and families. Ending hunger will make us a stronger nation.

This goal is achievable. The time is now. We call upon the President, Congress, and other elected leaders in states and cities to provide decisive leadership to end hunger in America. Let us all work together, private and public leaders, community, religious and charitable groups, to achieve an America where hunger is but a distant memory and we live true to the values of a great nation.

SIGNIFICANCE

In the twentieth century, core programs managed by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) such as the food stamp program, Child Nutrition Commodity Programs, the school meals programs, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and commodity distribution programs, have helped reduce vulnerability to food insecurity.

In the past, however, many families in need have not been able to participate in these programs. The millennium declaration unified several prominent antihunger organizations to eradicate hunger in the United States by ensuring higher participation in government programs. Although little has changed in the short time since the declaration, experts indicate that it is a step in the right direction.

NAHO members helped enact several programs after the declaration was issued. On June 3, 2004, the group released a "Blueprint to End Hunger" that mapped a targeted strategy to address hunger throughout the United States: "The fastest, most direct way to reduce hunger is to improve and expand the national nutrition programs so that they can provide people at risk of hunger with the resources they need." NAHO groups have sought bipartisan support for these recommendations.

In May 2005, the Hunger Free Communities Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate, reaffirming the commitment set forth by the blueprint. The act empowers authorities to gather more information on domestic hunger and strengthen local efforts through competitive grants to organizations such as food banks. The act also authorizes aid up to 50 million dollars a year for five years to assist hunger-relief organizations with infrastructure improvements, training and technical assistance, and expanding access to more nutritious food, including protein and produce.

According to NAHO members, eradicating hunger in the United States is possible through the joint effort of the government and various public health organizations, local dietetic associations, and community organizations. As outlined in the millennium declaration, such collaboration should not only provide food, but also develop educational programs that raise general awareness on food insecurity and undernourishment.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Schwartz-Nobel, Laura. Growing Up Empty: The Hunger Epidemic in America. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Web sites

Center on Hunger and Poverty. "Understanding Food Security: Data and Methodology." March 2004. <http:// www.centeronhunger.org/pdf/understanding.pdf> (accessed May 26, 2006).

Economic Research Service/USDA. "Improving Food Security in the United States." February 2003. <http://www.ers. usda.gov/publications/GFA14/GFA14-h.pdf> (accessed May 26, 2006).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Committee on World Food Security : International Alliance against Hunger." September 2004. <http:// www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/008/J2789e.htm> (accessed May 26, 2006).

Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). "Hunger in America, and its Solutions : Basic Facts." July 2005. <http://www.frac.org/pdf/HungerFacts.pdf> (accessed May 26, 2006).

—. "Hunger in the U.S.". <http://www.frac.org/html/ hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html> (accessed May 26, 2006).

Heritage Foundation. Rector, Robert E., and Kirk A. Johnson. "Understanding Poverty in America." Backgrounder no. 1713. January 5, 2004. <http://www.heritage.org/ Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm> (accessed May 26, 2006).

United States Senate. Lugar, Richard G. "Lugar Introduces Hunger Free Communities Act." May 25, 2005. <http://lugar.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id= 238197> (accessed May 26, 2006).