@dkmich This last week was a doozy for me. Had to run down tot the DHS office 3 times to straighten out the paperwork. The last time in a wheelchair.

Did my shopping last night. Came out to about 180 bucks, and that's about 2/3rds of what I get. Of course I shop Winco, because Costco doesn't take Food stamps, even though I'd vastly prefer Costco, when I can afford to go there. (Bulk is easier when you're a parent. Kids tend to like one meal for a long period, at least mine do. As a result, it's easier to go there for the huge staples.)

Saddest part is that the stores that don't take food stamps, DON'T have lottery right there at the counter. The Government knows who to soak.

they bitch about what they buy, and they make them dance for their supper. If you've ever applied for or received aid, you would know exactly what that means. I had the displeasure of operating TANF grants through my center. I hated the program.

@dkmich @dkmich

[redacted]

they bitch about what they buy, and they make them dance for their supper. If you've ever applied for or received aid, you would know exactly what that means. I had the displeasure of operating TANF grants through my center. I hated the program.

@the_poorly_educated
but just because you're rural doesn't mean you own land, or have access to the equipment needed for planting a substantial garden, whether you own or rent whatever land your home sits on.

And of course, gardening is hard work, when it isn't your hobby. Years ago, a classic Doonesbury cartoon had Jane Fonda mystified by her housekeeper's exhaustion. Fonda run through a list of her various businesses and activities, to which the housekeeper replies something to the effect of, "Ms. Fonda, you work because you want to, and I work because I have to, and there's a world of difference ..."

Rural and southern to me means acess to land to grow food. Collard greens would grow year round in the south. Maybe that's why they're so popular down there. Since these 42 million are food insecure and I'm assuming are involuntarily on a low-caloric diet, I'd love to know what their rate of Type 2 diabetes is in comparison to the rest of the population. As long as their bodies aren't using their own organs for fuel (starving) they possibly could be the healthiest, metabolically speaking, Americans living today.

@the_poorly_educated If I had the equipment, like a tiller for one, and the time (I commute about 2.5 hrs per day), and an area that's not baked in the intense sub-tropical heat, I could grow some collard greens. Then all I'd have to do is find me some fried chicken and watermelon. Shaking my damn head.

On a serious note, we have a small grocery store. It has a very limited supply of seriously overpriced, wilted, sad veggies and your basic apples and oranges. It also has a small selection of meat, if you're into that, though it's no longer fresh, as they removed the butcher department.

The next closest grocery store or Wal-Mart is 20 miles away. I can get organic yard eggs about 15 miles in another direction. The fields between here and both places grow feed corn, milo, and hay to feed the animals that are shipped away to feed other people.

Rural and southern to me means acess to land to grow food. Collard greens would grow year round in the south. Maybe that's why they're so popular down there. Since these 42 million are food insecure and I'm assuming are involuntarily on a low-caloric diet, I'd love to know what their rate of Type 2 diabetes is in comparison to the rest of the population. As long as their bodies aren't using their own organs for fuel (starving) they possibly could be the healthiest, metabolically speaking, Americans living today.

@the_poorly_educated I am a farmer in rural NY. Scattered among our small farms are tiny communities, many consisting substantially of small trailer parks, many if not most having no grocery store. Wipe out that happy peasant cheerfully tending a garden bursting with fruits and veggies fantasy. There are many elderly people here living on social security, seniors whose children have long since moved away.People here are severely stressed economically, and don't have the space,time, money or physical ability to have a garden. The church food kitchens are badly needed. The good news is that those who do grow produce donate generously to the food kitchens, and everyone tries to take care of their neighbors.

Rural and southern to me means acess to land to grow food. Collard greens would grow year round in the south. Maybe that's why they're so popular down there. Since these 42 million are food insecure and I'm assuming are involuntarily on a low-caloric diet, I'd love to know what their rate of Type 2 diabetes is in comparison to the rest of the population. As long as their bodies aren't using their own organs for fuel (starving) they possibly could be the healthiest, metabolically speaking, Americans living today.

@mimi

It's a discipline that seeks general truths at the expense of particular truths.

I grew up in the rural South, the edge of Appalachia, with neighbors and classmates who were poor and food-insecure. There were times when my family was poor and food-insecure.

Every one of us grew food to supplement what we could afford at the grocery. If you have very little income, you can't afford the grocery at all. And no one anywhere on any piece of land can grow all the food groups that make up the diet we're told we should have. Certainly no small family can do more than a couple of food groups if they are very skilled and very lucky.

The poor have the poor land, as someone else noted above. That means no pasturage for livestock, no fields for grain. All that better acreage belongs to the (comparatively or really) wealthy. You will be lucky to carve out a small kitchen garden to supplement your intake. If you have time -- because you are probably working like crazy for someone else just to pay rent or utilities or auto installments or insurance. You may not have time to garden. You may also be a child, unversed and unable to do the heavier tasks of gardening. Or you may be elderly, or disabled, or otherwise un-functional. The statistics don't distinguish these details.

The poor do not go hungry out of choice; they go hungry because they have little or no means to feed themselves, and that story comes in countless variations that the statistics ignore. It's very easy for the comfortable to ask why the poor don't do better for themselves. It's a very different thing to be poor and try to figure out how, in our society's configuration of resources, a poor person is supposed to be able to do better for himself/herself. These individuals, and they are individuals, not percentages, want better for themselves and their families, strive for better as long as any hope lingers somewhere inside them, but cannot achieve it because they are poor for a reason: the society made them that way in order to distribute the resources to someone else.

And one cannot compare the plight of the Appalachian poor with the circumstance of the Waldbauer in Germany in the war years.

people who own land in rural areas would be able to feed themselves from the plants they grow and animals they could raise on that land.

So, isn't there then another reason for why in rural areas the "food insecurity" (I don't like that expression, why not say "hunger syndrome") is more prevalent than in others?

During wwII you were lucky to be a peasant or small land owning farmer, because you could feed yourself and often help the passing refugees to get enough to eat. Women, children and elderlies were evacuated out of cities to rural areas, because they thought you could get food and shelter easier in rural areas.

What is the reason for the "rural hunger syndrome"? People don't own their hand anymore?

I guess so.

Didn't the CEO of Oracle buy the land of a small island in HI?

On June 21, 2012, Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, declared that Larry Ellison had signed an agreement to buy most of the island of Lanai from the Castle & Cooke company, owned by David H. Murdock. Ellison owns 98% of Lanai.

O well, may be you have fun to read about the history of Lanai. Whatever it was, I think one thing was certain, the few native Hawaiians who may have lived on Lanai didn't have a "rural hunger syndrome", but they got caught in the net of Mormon and Christian missionaries" or were bought by corporate oligarchs.

When Ellison bought 97% of the island in 2012, he took over pretty much everything. That includes small, local businesses — restaurants, shops, galleries, and markets — and large businesses like the two Four Seasons hotels on the island. He owns two golf courses, the community swimming pool, the water company, and a cemetery. He also owns nearly a third of all of the island's housing. The rest is owned by the government....
...Ellison reportedly bought out fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates.
Ellison isn't the only tech billionaire to have an interest in the island. Bill and Melinda Gates got married here on New Year's Day in 1994, reportedly during a ceremony that took place on the 17th hole of the Four Seasons' golf course, which looks out over the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was so secretive that the couple booked all of the rooms at the hotel to keep reporters from coming. Gates had reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Lanai before Ellison snatched it up.

Romantic stuff, isn't it ... if you are a billionaire that is.

I think what is correct for Lanai is similarly correct for all rural areas of other HI islands. The ananas from Dole you buy at Cosco in Maui is way cheaper than your own produce you cultivate in your garden. Who has the money to have land in HI? A house on this little island costs around $ 400,000.00. Who of the local working native population of 3,200 people earns enough money to buy a piece of land and a house on their own island?. Forgettaboutit.

So, what's the reason for rural poverty? Natives don't own their land or it has never been measured and titled before it got "sold" by corrupt politicians to corporate oligarchs from overseas. See also The Mystery of Capital.

It's beyond my paygrade, but I get the basics. "Hunger Syndrome" is a politically induced sickness and wouldn't occur naturally just because you live in a rural area.

@mimi
the clothes on their backs. They are the folks who make up a big chunk of that bottom 20 to 25% of the population whose net worth is effectively $0 -- or negative, even.

people who own land in rural areas would be able to feed themselves from the plants they grow and animals they could raise on that land.

So, isn't there then another reason for why in rural areas the "food insecurity" (I don't like that expression, why not say "hunger syndrome") is more prevalent than in others?

During wwII you were lucky to be a peasant or small land owning farmer, because you could feed yourself and often help the passing refugees to get enough to eat. Women, children and elderlies were evacuated out of cities to rural areas, because they thought you could get food and shelter easier in rural areas.

What is the reason for the "rural hunger syndrome"? People don't own their hand anymore?

I guess so.

Didn't the CEO of Oracle buy the land of a small island in HI?

On June 21, 2012, Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, declared that Larry Ellison had signed an agreement to buy most of the island of Lanai from the Castle & Cooke company, owned by David H. Murdock. Ellison owns 98% of Lanai.

O well, may be you have fun to read about the history of Lanai. Whatever it was, I think one thing was certain, the few native Hawaiians who may have lived on Lanai didn't have a "rural hunger syndrome", but they got caught in the net of Mormon and Christian missionaries" or were bought by corporate oligarchs.

When Ellison bought 97% of the island in 2012, he took over pretty much everything. That includes small, local businesses — restaurants, shops, galleries, and markets — and large businesses like the two Four Seasons hotels on the island. He owns two golf courses, the community swimming pool, the water company, and a cemetery. He also owns nearly a third of all of the island's housing. The rest is owned by the government....
...Ellison reportedly bought out fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates.
Ellison isn't the only tech billionaire to have an interest in the island. Bill and Melinda Gates got married here on New Year's Day in 1994, reportedly during a ceremony that took place on the 17th hole of the Four Seasons' golf course, which looks out over the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was so secretive that the couple booked all of the rooms at the hotel to keep reporters from coming. Gates had reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Lanai before Ellison snatched it up.

Romantic stuff, isn't it ... if you are a billionaire that is.

I think what is correct for Lanai is similarly correct for all rural areas of other HI islands. The ananas from Dole you buy at Cosco in Maui is way cheaper than your own produce you cultivate in your garden. Who has the money to have land in HI? A house on this little island costs around $ 400,000.00. Who of the local working native population of 3,200 people earns enough money to buy a piece of land and a house on their own island?. Forgettaboutit.

So, what's the reason for rural poverty? Natives don't own their land or it has never been measured and titled before it got "sold" by corrupt politicians to corporate oligarchs from overseas. See also The Mystery of Capital.

It's beyond my paygrade, but I get the basics. "Hunger Syndrome" is a politically induced sickness and wouldn't occur naturally just because you live in a rural area.

@riverlover Provides a breakfast for every child in public school. It is a minimal breakfast, but it is something to prevent children from starting the day hungry. The percentage of students receiving free or reduced price lunches in my county was nearly 59% in 2012, up from 48% in 2008. Note the rise of eleven percent in four short years. Hunger and food insecurity affects children the most.

Those may be meals for the day for some kids, very hard to track. Given the (still) tiered payments for school lunches, I do fear that some are falling through the grates. And vacations? Summer? Trump's visions seem to not have anything to do with reality. After-school programs (at least a snack) have no utility? Tell that to working parents who cannot be home at 3PM.

@mhagle FInally someone who lives by "there is no such thing as problems, only solutions"!

Fighting food insecurity in the South is my current passion. Where I live in Texas, plenty of less wealthy people still own land. It has been cheap. It is pretty land with wild flowers, but worthless for farming unless you can do the full Monsanto thing . . . and those people only grow crops to feed cattle or cotton.

I am partially growing my garden in round hay bales. There are many rotting round bales littering the countryside from over-baling in 2015. Still trying to figure it all out. I bought bales (cheap) from two different farmers. The first group that were more rotten and composted more quickly . . . the veggies grew at an amazing rate! The second group . . . I think I shrink wrapped them too soon so they did not decompose enough . . . those have not done as well, because the plants did not grow roots down into the bales. All of the veggies in all the bales, however, are full of blossoms.

But here we are . . . only the 7th of May and my in-the-sun thermometer says 98 degrees F. The heat index is 158. Even though there are thousands of blossoms and many bees the veggies will not set fruit when it is that hot. So I am frantically sewing shade cloths for all of the beds.

If the round bale gardening concept would be viable, those can be set up anywhere . . . even in parking lots.

@mhagle

          We will be trying out a small scale version (of what you have been doing) in our small yard in Medford. While doing my other sciencey stuff, I hope to connect, and develop some cooperative teaching ventures, with local producers in that area.

Fighting food insecurity in the South is my current passion. Where I live in Texas, plenty of less wealthy people still own land. It has been cheap. It is pretty land with wild flowers, but worthless for farming unless you can do the full Monsanto thing . . . and those people only grow crops to feed cattle or cotton.

I am partially growing my garden in round hay bales. There are many rotting round bales littering the countryside from over-baling in 2015. Still trying to figure it all out. I bought bales (cheap) from two different farmers. The first group that were more rotten and composted more quickly . . . the veggies grew at an amazing rate! The second group . . . I think I shrink wrapped them too soon so they did not decompose enough . . . those have not done as well, because the plants did not grow roots down into the bales. All of the veggies in all the bales, however, are full of blossoms.

But here we are . . . only the 7th of May and my in-the-sun thermometer says 98 degrees F. The heat index is 158. Even though there are thousands of blossoms and many bees the veggies will not set fruit when it is that hot. So I am frantically sewing shade cloths for all of the beds.

If the round bale gardening concept would be viable, those can be set up anywhere . . . even in parking lots.

@mhagle
The hay bales are brilliant. Raised beds are not that hard either.
I'm growing crops in most of the food groups needed for a healthy diet.
Multible varieties of beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, corn, multiple varieties of peas, all the herbs, raspberries, melons, and multiple varieties of lettuce. All at a tract home of modest size.
It wasn't created overnight but it can be done.
Of course, I'm retired and have the time and health to tend a garden.
Many people have to work, sometimes two or three jobs and don't have the time or energy to garden. But weighing those jobs against creating a self sustaining lifestyle of a garden, poultry, or rabbit husbandry could prove easier on the body and soul. Throw in a little bartering, one could live fairly healthy.

Fighting food insecurity in the South is my current passion. Where I live in Texas, plenty of less wealthy people still own land. It has been cheap. It is pretty land with wild flowers, but worthless for farming unless you can do the full Monsanto thing . . . and those people only grow crops to feed cattle or cotton.

I am partially growing my garden in round hay bales. There are many rotting round bales littering the countryside from over-baling in 2015. Still trying to figure it all out. I bought bales (cheap) from two different farmers. The first group that were more rotten and composted more quickly . . . the veggies grew at an amazing rate! The second group . . . I think I shrink wrapped them too soon so they did not decompose enough . . . those have not done as well, because the plants did not grow roots down into the bales. All of the veggies in all the bales, however, are full of blossoms.

But here we are . . . only the 7th of May and my in-the-sun thermometer says 98 degrees F. The heat index is 158. Even though there are thousands of blossoms and many bees the veggies will not set fruit when it is that hot. So I am frantically sewing shade cloths for all of the beds.

If the round bale gardening concept would be viable, those can be set up anywhere . . . even in parking lots.