Food waste

Mailstrom has previously reported on food waste here and now it is reported that food distribution charity is calling on the industry to make better use of millions of pounds worth of food earmarked as waste.
It argues that excess or nearly out-of-date produce that might be regarded as rubbish to supermarkets or food producers can be a lifeline to others.

FareShare Leicester has come to an arrangement allowing groups to collect fresh produce from local supermarkets on a daily basis.
"When you have the choice that either surplus food is put to good use like this or goes to landfill, then it's a bit of a no-brainer really," said Mr Willetts. "It's just about putting the mechanisms in place to make it happen."

Naturally , the only long term mechanism is Socialism but it will take a while for all those charities to reach that conclusion .

Poor America on Stamps

The number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s. The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters but recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched , the NYT reports .

“People sign up for food stamps when they lose their jobs, or their wages go down because their hours are cut,” said director of food stamp policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who noted that 14 states saw their rolls reach record numbers by last December.

In Michigan, one in eight residents now receives food stamps. “Our caseload has more than doubled since 2000, and we’re at an all-time record level,” said spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Human Services.

From December 2006 to December 2007, more than 40 states saw recipient numbers rise, and in several — Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island — the one-year growth was 10 percent or more. In Rhode Island, the number of recipients climbed by 18 percent over the last two years, to more than 84,000 as of February, or about 8.4 percent of the population. New York - one in ten New Yorkers, 1.86 million, now receives food stamps.

The cost of feeding a family of four on a low-income budget has jumped nearly 6 percent since February 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
"We're just going to see the purchasing power for food stamps continuing to erode, and it doesn't do anything to get commodities up on the shelves in the food banks," said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center
"A lot of the staple items - bread, dairy products in particular - have had a sharp increase (in price)," said Dayna Ballantyne, the Johnson County Crisis Center food bank director. "Across the board, our clients are finding they just aren't able to purchase food like they used to."
The amount of food stamp benefits a family is allowed goes up each fall based on inflation. But that increase is based on an estimate of food costs the previous June, and since last June, food costs have risen 5.2 percent, according to USDA."For our clients that do receive food stamps, the amount of food stamps allocated per household hasn't gone up with the food costs. The food stamps they receive haven't gone as far as they used to," Ballantyne said.

Low-income Oklahomans are harmed more by the nation's declining dollar as food stamps are stretched to cover increasing food prices, the state Human Services Commission was told . "Low-income families paying $4 for a gallon of milk and $2 or $3 for a loaf of bread means those food stamp benefits aren't going as far," Hendrick said. More than one of every three Oklahoma kids received food stamps for at least one month last year. More than 417,600 Oklahomans received food stamps in February , up 21 percent compared with six years ago.

About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years. 274,487 state residents received food stamps. That's up from 246,890 just five years ago, according to here . But while the number of people on the program has jumped sharply, the federal government has raised the average per-person monthly benefits over that time by just $12 to $85.Meanwhile, the cost of food is expected to jump by up to 4 percent this year,Food costs have been increasing by at least 2.4 percent each year since 2004.Added to that budget strain are record gasoline prices.
Sarah Young, a policy specialist with the Department of Health and Human Resources, says the agency is seeing more of the state's working poor applying for food stamps in order to make ends meet."Even those eligible for lower amounts are coming back onto the program because they have less to spend on food," Young said. "These are historically higher rates. I think even nationwide, we're at our highest rates."
Increased demand on food pantries and soup kitchens seem to indicate that poor families are running out of resources to buy food earlier and earlier each month

New Jersey ranks as the nation's second wealthiest state, but 20 percent of its working families -- the equivalent of 750,000 men, women and children -- don't have enough income to support themselves, according to this report . The number of low-income families in the state has climbed to 200,000, up 16 percent since 2000 .
The report describes as "low income" a family of four that earned less than $39,942 in 2005 . The Economic Policy Institute has calculated the actual cost of living in New Jersey and concluded a family of four requires an income ranging from $49,572 to $57,144 to be self-sufficient
"One in five households may have a livelihood but it is not sufficient to give them a happy and healthy life," The Rev. Bruce Davidson, director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry said

In its 2007 Nashville Living Wage Estimate, Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice found a family of two working adults and two children needs to earn a gross minimum of $43,076 to provide for its basic needs. That figure, which amounts to two adults earning about $10.35 an hour, isn't what at least 575,000 of the 1.6 million Tennesseans employed in 2007 were able to find.
As Marxists know "In a marketplace economy, the market sets wages…," said David Penn, director of Middle Tennessee State University's Center for Business and Economic Research.
"One of the most famous phrases in the movement is a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Melissa Snarr, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University's divinity school."Really, what we are talking about here is whether we want work to include justice … or for lots of people who work to have to get by with something like food stamps."
Naivity at its best , really . Wages are set to ENSURE you don't have enough so that you return each week to labour once more - the reason it is described as wage-SLAVERY .

The Jungle re-lived

Just when you thought it safe to eat .

The US Department of Agriculture has ordered the recall of 143 million lb (64.9 million kg) of beef - the largest meat recall in the country's history. An estimated 37 million lbs (16.8 million kg) of the beef recalled on Sunday went to school lunch programmes and other federal nutrition programmes . Some was also supplied to major fast-food chains.

It comes from a company in California, which allowed meat from cattle unable to stand at the time of slaughter to enter the food chain. The recall was ordered after USDA officials said the plant did not consistently order "complete and proper" inspections of cattle which had lost the ability to walk prior to slaughter.
Such "downer" cattle are at greater risk of contamination by E. coli, salmonella or contracting mad cow disease, as they have weaker immune systems and greater contact with faeces than walking cattle. They should either be removed from the food supply, or receive a more thorough inspection following slaughter, officials say.

The meat-packing plant is also being investigated for animal cruelty after an undercover video came to light showing crippled and sick animals being mistreated.
Agriculture Secretary Ed Shafer said he had been "dismayed by the inhumane handling of cattle" that resulted in the violation of food safety regulations at Westland/Hallmark.

Just like The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Banking on Food Hand-outs

"I'm pretty good at making things stretch as far as I can, but food is so high now and I have to have gas in my car to do my job," said Diana Blasingame, who earns $9 an hour as a home health aide. "I work full time, but I don't have health insurance and sometimes there just isn't enough to pay bills and buy food."

Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many food banks to cut portions. Demand is being driven up by rising costs of food, housing, utilities, health care and gasoline, while food manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are finding they have less surplus food to donate and government help has decreased, according of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual hunger survey released showed that more than 35.5 million people in the United States were hungry in 2006. While that number was about the same as the previous year, heads of food banks say many more people are seeking their assistance.

1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies and institutions served nearly 8 million people in 2006, including 4.1 million living below the poverty line. Catholic Charities agencies are serving a rising percentage of people who live below the federal poverty line, which in 2006 was $20,000 for a family of four. The report found that 52 percent of Catholic Charities clients in 2006 were from below the federal poverty line—up from 43 percent in 2002.
Local Catholic Charities agencies saw a 12 percent increase in the need for food service programs in 2006. Between 2002 and 2006, the number of clients receiving food services—such as soup kitchens, food banks and food pantries, home delivered meals and congregate dining—increased by 2.7 million, or nearly 60 percent.

Almost 1.3 million New Yorkers visited food pantries, soup kitchens and similar programs in 2007, up 24 percent from 2004, according to a report prepared the Food Bank for New York City. New York's food banks have seen federal food aid drop by almost half from 2004 level.

Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network, the nation's largest hunger relief group, said Friday. ""We have food banks in virtually every city in the country, and what we are hearing is that they are all facing severe shortages with demand so high...One of our food banks in Florida said demand is up 35 percent over this time last year."

Tony Hall, vice president of the Food Bank of Southwest Georgia, estimates a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in demand for food in the 20-county area the organization serves. "...Each year the demand gets bigger and bigger."

" We've lost factory jobs and many service jobs don't pay a livable wage," said Dick Stevens, director the food and nutrition division of Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action, in southeast Ohio. "We see a lot of desperation in families who are trying to figure out how to pay higher fuel and utility costs and still put food on the table."

Liz Carter, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in Cincinnati , said "... it's so difficult when you see the desperation and have to tell them you just don't have enough to give them what they need."

"We're bracing ourselves for a very tough winter, especially with home heating fuel prices at record highs in the Northeast," Quandt said, of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York , "People living in poverty or near poverty just can't sustain those types of increases."

Nor is it only a food shortage crisis . It is homelessness .


Shelters are already reporting more need among households.

One shelter in Minneapolis served as many people by the end of September as in all of last year. For the first time in 10 years, a homeless shelter in Joliet, Ill., is full, said Lorri Nagle, director of development at the Catholic Charities USA agency . Requests for temporary shelters increased 24 percent over the past five years. In 2006, Catholic Charities managed more than 176 temporary shelters (nearly 7,800 beds). Yet they were unable to serve more than 31,000 people because all available beds were full.




And we are told capitalism is the system that works and satisfies needs !!

American Nightmares

Touched on the American Dream and the lack of thereof for many of the black population but of course the real American nightmare is not simply restricted to race .

Michigan, by some calculations, has lost 400,000 jobs in the past seven years. That's in a state whose population is only 10 million. Detroit is seeing unemployment running at nearly 8%, twice the national average. The number of homes in the city "foreclosed" - or repossessed by mortgage lenders - is among the highest in the country. An economic storm is hitting this state - falling property prices, a credit crunch, a shrinking tax base and rising oil prices.

"This is ground zero when it comes to poverty..." an organiser at Gleaners Community Food Bank, a charity which provides food to needy people, reported .

A marked increase in the number of professional workers who are seeking food assistance.

Daniel Wolfe worked in civil engineering for 22 years. He lost his job eight months ago. Daniel had been earning $90,000 a year . Daniel and Cynthia thought of themselves as middle class. He was laid off when the state government cut back on contracts to private companies. His unemployment benefits expired. Much of that money had been spent on trying keep up the family health insurance. And his savings disappeared . In the course of eight months, Daniel and his family have gone from prosperity to poverty. Daniel and his wife Cynthia collect free groceries from a charity food bank .

"To find myself in a position where I couldn't afford a gallon of milk, I couldn't afford a loaf of bread - it was very humbling," he says. "For want of a better term it made me feel like a loser...I think we're on the poverty line right now..."

So will Michigan's pain spread to the rest of the country?

"Keep an eye on Michigan . I believe what's happening here could happen to the rest of America ..." - Augie Fernandez at Gleaners food bank

Hat-tip to PB at World Socialist Movement Forum for link