US launches effort to end hunger by 2030 by expanding benefits and access to healthy foods

The Biden government has launched a new strategy to end hunger in the US by 2030 through the expansion of benefits such as free school meals and food stamps.

The plan, published on Tuesday, wants to cut the number of households experiencing hunger from four to less than one percent by 2030, and half the number experiencing food insecurity.

The national strategy comes a day before the White House hosts the first conference on hunger, nutrition and health in 53 years. Since then food security has improved but remains stubbornly high, while the consumption of processed unhealthy foods and diet-related diseases have increased.

The plan states that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will support communities to convert vacant spaces into grocery stores, urban gardens and food hubs. About 40 million people live far from the nearest grocery store, with rural and Indigenous communities most likely to live in the worst food deserts.

According to Raj Patel, public policy researcher at the LJB school in Austin and author of Stuffed and Starved, the strategy seeks to expand social safety nets to prevent hunger but fails to address why people are falling into poverty in the first place.

Two-thirds of undocumented migrant children do not get enough nutritious food, and their parents are mostly excluded from food stamps and other benefits.

The last food conference hosted by Richard Nixon in 1969 was a pivotal moment in American food policy that led to the expansion of food stamps and gave rise to the Women, Infants and Children program that today provides parenting advice, breastfeeding support and food assistance to the mothers of half the babies born each year.