Higher food costs and rising gas prices could prove to be damaging to the nation’s food banks and their ability to provide adequate emergency food to the nearly 49 million Americans who are currently living at risk of hunger, Feeding America, the network of the nation’s largest food banks announced.

Although recent reports indicate that the economy is beginning to improve and that the unemployment rate is also beginning to shrink, Feeding America’s food banks continue to face significant struggles as America recovers from the worst economic recession in decades.

The Feeding America network of more than 200 food banks and 61,000 local partners are feeding 37 million Americans a year, including nearly 14 million children and 3 million seniors. But with rising operating costs and decreasing supply, a number of factors are contributing to a “perfect storm” of challenges that threaten to leave food banks unable to meet the need in their communities.

Gas prices increased 26% in 2011, adding tremendous costs to transporting food. Increased fuel costs particularly affect rural areas, where populations are less dense. Many food banks support emergency feeding across a vast service area.
Food inflation is also hitting food banks hard. Grocery prices increased an average rate of 6% in the last half of 2011, and food banks have been hard pressed to make up the difference.

Feeding America Food banks have seen significant increases in the price of household staples like milk, which increased in price by nine percent in 2011, and peanut butter, which costs 38% more now than it did a year ago. Rising food prices also mean that healthy, nutritious food becomes further out of reach for many of the clients served by Feeding America, further increasing their reliance on food banks
“A major concern for us is the significant decline in USDA commodities provided to our food banks.

These commodities generally account for about a quarter of the 3 billion pounds of food our food banks distribute each year. This is highly-valued, nutritious food – fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy product. We saw a reduction of about 30 percent last year, and are already experiencing more reductions this year,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America.

Donations of food from food manufacturers also declined by about 15% last year, due to increased manufacturing efficiencies.

“We are also deeply concerned about the potential for cuts to Federal hunger-relief programs like SNAP (food stamps) as Congress looks for ways to reduce the deficit. More than 40 million Americans, including many of our clients, rely on SNAP. We understand that there must be reductions in government spending, but cutting anti-hunger programs is penny-wise and a pound foolish,” Escarra said.

“Federal nutrition programs meet an urgent and immediate need. They also reap long term benefits by eliminating the health, educational, and workforce productivity costs associated with hunger and poor nutrition,” Escarra said. “Feeding America urges Congress to maintain robust funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program, Commodity Supplemental Nutrition Program and SNAP.”

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As the U.S. economy continues to struggle, with an unemployment rate that has hovered around 9 percent since May 2009, more and more families are looking to get assistance for their grocery bills. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, has recieved record participation.

As of May 2011 the number of people receiving benefits rose to 45.8 million, prompting criticism from Republicans about government spending. The number of people on SNAP began to increase in 1999 and has steadily gone up every year since, with a huge spike in participants in the last two years following the housing crash in 2009.

Both former presidents Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush encouraged wider participation, and President Obama has voiced similar convictions. This has begun to ease the negative stigma attached to those receiving food benefits and resulted in more participation. Part of the reason for the large increase in the number of people getting SNAP benefits is the large number of individuals in the program who are only employed part-time.

These are hard-working individuals who are often looking for full-time employment, but are having a difficult time having their hours increased. As a result, there just is not enough money by the end of the month for all of the necessary bills, and food. SNAP brings welcome relief to those who would like to be making enough money to not need assistance, but are currently unable to do so.

The growing number of individuals on food stamps is an indicator of the large number of people either out of work, or not getting enough work. Until unemployment numbers begin to go down, enrollment in SNAP is likely to stay fairly high.

The government cost of $68 million last year to run the program has led Republicans to encourage cutting some of the costs of the program as part of the overall goal to decrease government spending and reduce the nation’s debt. Democrats have disagreed with cutting this particular program because reportedly for every dollar that the program costs, $1.87 comes back into the economy.

It is believed that by spending money on SNAP benefits, the employees paid to transport, stock, and sell the food purchased helps to stimulate the economy. Another problem is the belief that the money spent on this program is wasted by those not using the benefits for their intended purpose.

While abuse of the system does exist, and there are certainly a number of people on SNAP who do things like sell their cards for cash, abuse of the system is not as widespread as is sometimes assumed. The Department of Agriculture estimates that approximately 2 percent of those receiving benefits are using their food stamps fraudulently.

While it would be preferable that no abuse of this program occurred, this low number indicates the large number of Americans whose incomes are legitimately at the level where they are unable to feed their families and keep up with rent and utilities. Whether or not SNAP benefit funding should be cut, or if it is an important part of rebuilding the economy remains to be decided.

However, the fact that record numbers of individuals are on the program and thousands more are eligible, but are not receiving benefits, is a symptom of America’s struggling economy.

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