US food banks are closing
Posted by: isiria, in social injustice, unsustainability, world of money
Empty shelves at the Alameda County Community Food Bank
in Oakland signal a hard winter ahead for those in need.
Another sign for an economic model in deep trouble: US food banks are struggling to supply the poor. The New York Times reports that critical shortages have forced them to ration supplies, distribute staples usually reserved for disaster relief and in some instances close. The situation is the worst some organisations have seen for 26 years.
Experts attributed the shortages to an unusual combination of factors, including
- rising demand, partly driven by rising prices of oil, gas, rents and the results of foreclosures
- a sharp drop in federal supplies of excess farm products because farmers are doing well, which leaves the federal Agriculture Department’s Bonus Commodity Program with too little surplus crops to buy (supplies from the surplus program dropped to $67 million worth last year, from $154.3 million in 2005 and $233 million in 2004)
- tighter inventory controls that are leaving supermarkets and other retailers with less food to donate
- retailers selling to discount stores items they can’t sell or that are part of seasonal inventory that is no longer needed because people are shopping in those places
- a farm bill currently stalled in the Senate that would raise emergency aid for food banks to $250 million a year, from $140 million, a figure has remained steady since 2002
The Vermont Food Bank said its supply of food was down 50 percent from last year, and for two weeks this month, the New Hampshire Food Bank distributed supplies reserved for emergency relief. Demand for food here is up 40 percent over last year and supply is down 30 percent, which is striking in the state with the lowest reliance on food banks. Household budget squeezes have led to a drop in donations and greater demand, leaving not only the homeless hungry but also working people. Household incomes are kind of stuck. There’s very little way to increase income, and most people have a very heavy debt load. Any event that increases your costs is really, really troublesome, because they already are stretched thin.
The problem though is not just a result of social injustice (e.g. some struggling food bank are in the heart of one of the most productive agriculture areas in the world) or corporate greed - it is a systemic one, and it is no surprise that American food banks are hit hard. The US is the champion of a totally unsustainable, ruthless capitalism that deifies the market, exalts those who successfully profit from it and worships consumerism over anything else in life. This has resulted in a nation living totally beyond its means through racking up staggering amounts of debt (that it can’t repay) for the acquisition of goods (it didn’t really need), resulting in an economy that slowly but surely is sliding into recession. And given the US being the biggest consumer society in the world, the global repercussions will be enormous, with the only unpredictable aspect right now being the scale of the negative effects. Foreclosures, food bank shortages, the falling US dollar, peak oil, falling consumer confidence and the various effects of global warming are all signs for an economic model at breaking point and maybe even at the beginning of collapse. The free market economy, certainly in its excessive neo-conservative manifestation is dieing, with the pain accompanying its demise just beginning for all of us.
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