Remarks by Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman National Summit on Community Food Security: Building Partnerships to End Hunger Chicago, Illinois -- October 14, 1999 Release No. st005.99 Remarks As Prepared for Delivery by Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman National Summit on Community Food Security: Building Partnerships to End Hunger Chicago, Illinois -- October 14, 1999 "Thank you, Mr. President. I am confident that with his leadership, and with the energy and commitment in this room, we can and we will meet our goal: to cut hunger and food insecurity in half by the year 2015. "I want to thank Joel Berg, Kate Mehr and the entire staff of the National Community Food Security Initiative for their tireless work and their tenacious pursuit of that goal. "I also want to thank all of you. This is a most unprecedented gathering. Never before has such a diverse collection of people and interests come together in a joint effort to fight hunger and food insecurity in America. Here today, we have men and women representing some of the nation's most powerful corporations. We have others who have made service and spirituality their life's work. And we also have a state senator, food bank directors, farmers, high school students, university professors and more. It's living proof that all Americans -- regardless of age, occupation, or religion -- have a stake in this effort. "While we all have a stake, the fact is that none of us can eliminate this scourge on our own. That's why we're here -- to work together, to complement each other, to create new relationships, to exchange information and resources, to combine our expertise, and to leverage each other's investments. "Turning national attention to this particular problem at this particular time is indeed a challenge. America's moans of hunger have by and large been drowned out by the euphoria of the longest peacetime economic expansion in the nation's history. "Don't get me wrong, that euphoria is justified and well-deserved. The story of this booming economy is a remarkable one, which should be told and celebrated repeatedly. But we can't confuse accomplishment with culmination. We can't be satisfied with what we've already done. Not when millions of our neighbors go hungry every day. Not when millions more worry that they may have to sacrifice a few meals in order to keep the heat running or the electricity on. "In the media, hunger is often depicted as a crisis of the developing world. And it is. But it's time we also turned inward, to the hunger in our communities, the undernourishment of our neighbors and fellow citizens. "Hunger doesn't discriminate. It afflicts Americans of every conceivable stripe. It doesn't respect city or county lines. It's not simply the plague of the jobless or the homeless. It's a problem in our inner cities. It's a problem in our isolated rural communities. And yes, hunger is a problem even in the leafy paradise of the suburbs, the cradle of the American Dream. "And for every American household that is hungry, there are almost two more that are teetering on the brink of hunger. During the 3-year period ending last August, on average nearly one in ten American households were food insecure at any given time. They may have food today, but a minor setback or two a temporary layoff, an unexpected rent increase, a broken-down car can force them to go hungry. "Today, we are releasing the results of a study we've done at USDA that breaks down hunger and food insecurity state-by-state. What we've found is a broad range with food insecurity as high as 15.4 percent in New Mexico and as low as 4.6 percent in North Dakota. "There are many ways of interpreting this data, but no one factor really provides a satisfactory explanation. There appears to be some correlation between states with high food insecurity and those with high poverty, high housing costs, and low food stamp participation. But none of those provides enough correlation to draw any definitive conclusion. "I was most struck by the geography of food insecurity. Those states with low rates are concentrated in the northeast, the industrial midwest and the northern plains. But the states with the most food insecurity form a contiguous strip along the nation's periphery, beginning in the Pacific northwest, moving south to the Mexican border, and then east all the way to Florida. Interestingly, the high-growth Sunbelt, where many Americans have flocked over the last few decades in search of comfort and opportunity, has very high levels of food insecurity. "I'll leave it to the social scientists to figure out what it all means. But at the very least, the state-by-state study serves to highlight one of the key principles underlying this Summit that there is no boilerplate, one- size-fits-all solution to this problem. Every state, every community, every neighborhood is different. Oklahoma and Washington state, despite identical 11.9 percent food insecurity rates, will require very different solutions. Even within certain states, there are going to be different conditions that demand different approaches. What will successfully boost food security on Chicago's South side will not work in rural downstate Illinois communities, and vice versa. "So where do we begin to solve this problem? "The federal government is the first line of defense against hunger. At the Department of Agriculture, we manage the nation's nutritional safety net, providing support for Americans who can't feed themselves. "And this Administration works every day to protect and strengthen that safety net. After welfare reform, we fought to restore food stamp benefits for legal immigrants. This was the first administration in 20 years to get a Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill that includes a program for after-school snacks. And we continue to push for a fully-funded WIC program. "But there is obviously a limit to what we in the federal government can do. That's where the rest of you come in, with the outstanding work you do in your communities to deliver food directly to those who need it. "So we are fighting side-by-side in this foxhole, with hunger as the common enemy. But we're not always using the same arsenal, and we're not always sharing supplies or communicating as effectively as we should. Too often, federal nutrition programs and community-based anti-hunger efforts have been isolated from one another, like two parallel lines that never meet. "That's why we're here today, and that's what USDA's Community Food Security Initiative is all about ending that estrangement, working together and forging relationships that will create a whole greater than the sum of our individual parts. "As outlined in the video, the Initiative is organized around seven themes or action areas. "First, we want to enhance local food infrastructures. This Initiative has to be about more than getting food into communities. Communities also need systems that assure proper handling and prompt delivery of that food. The staff and volunteer base has to be there to put local efforts into effect. There also has to be transportation, as well as adequate refrigeration and storage facilities. "And we're speaking not just of physical infrastructure, but of information infrastructures as well. For example, you'll hear later about a partnership between Hewlett-Packard and America's Second Harvest, to develop a new national computer system that will link food suppliers with food banks. "To help build local infrastructures, today I'm announcing $2.5 million in grants to 20 community-based organizations. These awards support local projects that run the gamut from an agriculture-based entrepreneurial project in Philadelphia public schools, to a Hawaii-based community garden dedicated to organic farming education and the celebration of native foods. "We have also designated a community food security liaison for each state and territory, and most of them are here today. They will serve as one- stop shops, connecting their communities with the appropriate USDA resources and assistance. And one of the liaisons' new responsibilities will be to help localities turn the commitments made at this summit into reality. "The second principle is increasing economic and job security. Let's face it: the hunger problem is, at least in part, a poverty problem. People don't have enough food because they can't afford to buy it. That's why the President has fought so consistently for a higher minimum wage, to increase the purchasing power of the working poor, so that they have access to life's basics. "If all we do to increase food security is provide food, then we're attacking the symptoms rather than the disease. So we are committed to integrating much of our USDA economic development work with our anti-hunger efforts. For example, each of the rural Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities that we work with will now have a food security component to their activities and strategic plans. We will also encourage states and other federal agencies to provide incentives for community kitchens to move beyond food rescue to programs that include welfare-to-work support and job training. "Third, we are committed to further strengthening the federal nutritional safety net. For example, this summer, with the help of many of you in this room, we launched an aggressive food stamps education campaign, which you'll hear more about later. The campaign is designed to ensure that all eligible Americans know about food stamps and know where and how to get them. "Of course, the effectiveness of federal programs depends on the work of our partners -- schools, WIC clinics, child care centers, and so on. So we are also developing "tool kits", with information that allows program providers, public officials, and other members of the community to spot potential barriers to delivery of our nutrition programs. The Tool Kit will be available in December, and we are distributing a flyer that will allow you to order your copy today. "The fourth principle is enhancing food recovery and gleaning efforts. I care very deeply about this issue and have devoted a lot of time to it. It is a national shame that our dumpsters and trash disposals are better fed than many of our people. "Food recovery is unique in that anyone can do it not just farms, restaurants and caterers but any one individual citizen. At USDA, we've undertaken an aggressive effort to rescue excess food and redirect it to those who need it. I'm announcing today that our Farm Service Agency, working with farmers on a field gleaning program and other activities, has managed to recover 7.3 million pounds of food in just the last two years. That's enough to feed all of St. Petersburg, Florida for a week. And all this was done at virtually no additional cost to the federal government. "Fifth, we will work to improve community food production and marketing. Too many neighborhoods have no home-grown food. As a result, they do not get the freshest meat or produce. They pay more for lower-quality food. And they are vulnerable to breakdowns in the farm-to-table marketing chain. "We are trying to eliminate as many links as possible in that chain. For example, we're launching a nationwide campaign to increase the number of food-bearing community gardens around the country. "We will also provide incentives and support for farmers to sell directly to the school meals program. And we will fund projects that create a link between small farm marketing and food security. For example, we've awarded a grant to support a unique partnership in New York that allows food stamp recipients to use part of their electronic benefits transfer allowance to buy food at open-air farmers markets. "The sixth principle involves increasing education and awareness. Not just, as the video demonstrated, educating low-income Americans about food and nutrition. We must also educate all Americans especially those who live in relative comfort -- about the problems of hunger and food insecurity. "I believe that we can make people understand -- and care about -- hunger in a way that they can't grasp other forms of deprivation. For the most part, only the physically disabled know what it means to have your movement restricted or one of your senses taken away. And most of us who are financially secure have never been poor, so we can't possibly know what it means to live a life of want. "But every single one of us gets hungry, every single day. It's just that we are not forced to go hungry. Because we have the means to relieve our hunger. We need to get people to imagine what it would be like for the discomfort of hunger -- the light head, the growling belly, the dry mouth -- to last not just until we find a coffee shop that's open...not just until the waiter brings our food...but for a day or two at a time. "The seventh and final principle calls for improving research, monitoring and evaluation, so that communities can properly measure and assess their food insecurity levels. After all, you have to know exactly what the problem is before you can have a good solution. "So today I am announcing $2.5 million in USDA grants to universities, hospitals and think tanks, and other researchers. The State University of New York is one of the recipients, as it explores the relationship between welfare implementation and food stamp caseloads. We will also be supporting an inquiry by the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati into the risk and impact of hunger in poor families headed by a single mother. "What unites all seven of our themes is partnership. Most of the commitments I've cited are commitments from us at USDA. But none of them can be done by USDA alone. Field gleaning, for example, requires partnership from farmers. With our grant programs, we're merely providing some of the tools necessary to bring existing projects or research to fruition. Furthermore, over the course of the day, we'll see more commitments from all of the parties represented here today. "Let me say again that this Summit and this Initiative are only partly about food. They are also about community empowerment and community morale. If a community suffers from chronic unemployment and a prevailing sense of hopelessness, its people will be more vulnerable to hunger and food insecurity. "The Summit and the Initiative are also about public works and facilities. If there's no public transportation in a city, how is a poor resident, who can't afford a car, going to get to the local soup kitchen or food stamp office? "The Summit and the Initiative are also about agricultural production and marketing. If farmers don't sell locally -- if they have to rely on large processors as their only customers then people don't have access to the freshest, most affordable food. "This interconnectedness of the food security crisis demands a broad- based response from every corner of society. And that's why it's so important that all of you are here. "Finally and I can't emphasize this enough: you, the community leaders, are the heroes of this initiative. USDA is a partner, a catalyst, a facilitator. But you make it happen. In Hartford, Connecticut...in Story County, Iowa...in Santa Monica, California and in hundreds of other communities, you are getting your hands dirty. You are doing the legwork. You are hurdling the obstacles. And you, ultimately, will be responsible for our success. "We live in the land of plenty, the most richest, most powerful and most agriculturally abundant nation on earth. We have the ability to transmit information electronically halfway around the world in an eyeblink. We can employ satellites to take photographs of neighboring planets. We can turn corn into a renewable energy source. We have the pharmaceuticals to treat diseases that killed people as recently as forty years ago. "But still we haven't succeeded in feeding all of our people. "The national conscience should shake with remorse at that very thought. And the pragmatic voice within each of us should understand that hunger and food insecurity squander human capital and weaken the entire nation. It's time to home in on this national moral crisis. Working together, it's time to get it done. "Thank you very much." #