Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern is spearheading the first White House Conference of Food Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years:
The White House is hosting a national conference on Wednesday,The first and only Conference on Food Nutrition and Health was hosted by then-President Richard Nixon in 1969. It resulted in the creation of the Women, Infants, and Children program, which provides food to half the infants in the country. It also paved the way for SNAP benefits, like food stamps.
In its most recent report on food insecurity, the Greater Boston Food Bank found enrollment in SNAP by Massachusetts residents rose nine percentage points between 2020 and 2021. It also found one-third of adults in the state experienced food insecurity last year.Morning EditionBelow are highlights from their conversation, which have been lightly edited.
"It's an ambitious goal, but it's a realistic goal. We have a hunger problem in the United States of America. Nearly 40 million Americans don't know where their next meal is going to come from, and hunger is a political condition. We have an abundance of food, we have the resources, we have the infrastructure. We have everything but the political will.
"We had a hunger problem before the pandemic, but the pandemic made things worse. Families that never had to deal with hunger or food insecurity all of a sudden found themselves in a very, very precarious position. So, the awareness and the attention to this issue grew. We did some things during the pandemic that we should continue post-pandemic.
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