Tag: food insecurity
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A Capitalist Solution to Food Deserts
by James A. Bacon Yesterday, channeling the spirit of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I asked what a young person should do if he or she wanted to make the world a better place. Broadly speaking, there are three approaches. One is activism in which people who, informed by a desire to improve the lives of those…
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Bacon’s Rebellion Challenge: Donate Your COVID Recovery Check to Charity
by James A. Bacon So, I got my government COVID-19 check in the mail. I like getting money from the federal government, especially when it’s a tax refund. But I did nothing to deserve this particular sum. I have not been an economic victim of the epidemic (not yet, anyway) and I feel totally undeserving,…
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Richmond’s Food Desert a Tough Nut to Crack
by James A. Bacon It is part of the liberal/progressive catechism that inner city neighborhoods across the United States, including Virginia, are afflicted by “food deserts” — large swaths of territory lacking access to stores selling fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods. This deprivation is typically seen as a failure of the free-market system…
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A Nonprofit Insider’s View on Child Nutrition
Last week I asked the question how, given our nation’s’ extensive social safety net, it is possible that children in Virginia go hungry and suffer from malnutrition. Are government support payments deficient? Are food deserts to blame? Do people squander their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) stipends? Is something else going on? The explanations we…
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If Kids Are Going Hungry, Does Anyone Care Why?
No one wants to see children go hungry, so one’s natural instinct is to sympathize with a new initiative like No Kid Hungry, which is helping parents and caregivers locate free meals in their communities with a simple text message. But a Richmond Times-Dispatch article profiling the program makes a startling statement: The school year…
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Brace Yourself for the “Food Justice” Movement
“Food justice” is a thing now. My first instinct when I read the phrase was cynical: While some people are busy running food banks and food pantries, growing urban gardens, and setting up grocery stores in Richmond’s inner city — you know, doing things that actually feed poor people — food justice warriors are busy…
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The Wrong Way to Tackle Food Insecurity
According to U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, more than 1 million Virginians live in food deserts. To deal with the problem, he has sponsored legislation in Congress to incentivize businesses and nonprofits to provide healthy food in those areas. And he was in Salem yesterday visiting Feeding America Southwest Virginia to talk about food insecurity.…
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Supply-Side Experiment in Food Desert Goes Bust
Poor Jim Scanlon. He bought into the conventional wisdom that food deserts are a supply-side problem — an unwillingness of grocery store operators to locate in inner cities. Hoping to remedy that deficiency, the idealistic former Ukrop’s executive opened Jim’s Local Market in a low-income neighborhood in Newport News in May 2016. Now, a year…
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Fixing Food Deserts Won't Fix Food Insecurity
by James A. Bacon Speaking of food… there’s new research out on the differences in diet and nutrition between different socioeconomic groups. The conventional wisdom is that a major factor explaining the gap in nutritional quality between affluent and poor Americans is the difficulty poor people have in accessing fresher, healthier food — the food desert…
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Fixing Food Deserts Won’t Fix Food Insecurity
by James A. Bacon Speaking of food… there’s new research out on the differences in diet and nutrition between different socioeconomic groups. The conventional wisdom is that a major factor explaining the gap in nutritional quality between affluent and poor Americans is the difficulty poor people have in accessing fresher, healthier food — the food desert…
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Are We Reducing Food Insecurity or Aggravating It?
by James A. Bacon The federal government has awarded Virginia an $8.8 million grant, to support a program in the City of Richmond and seven localities in Southwest Virginia to fight child hunger. Elaborates the Times-Dispatch: The children will receive a third meal before leaving school every day, and they will also participate in an off-hours…
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Are Do-Gooders Making Food Insecurity Worse?
by James A. Bacon Food deserts are back in the news here in Richmond with the premier of a documentary, “Living in a Food Desert,” at the Richmond International Film Festival. First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe, who has made food security her signature cause, attended the screening and addressed the audience. More than 300,000 Virginia children are…
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A Worthwhile Experiment in Bringing Nutrition to the Inner City
by James A. Bacon The East End of Richmond is a notorious food desert where thousands of low-income residents don’t have ready access to healthy food. Richmonders have responded in a number of ways, most visibly by encouraging the cultivation of gardens in empty lots and back yards and by working with local convenience markets…
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Will More Gov’t Spending Reduce Richmond Food Insecurity?
by James A. Bacon After two years of deliberations, a Richmond Food Policy Task Force has issued recommendations for tackling so-called “food deserts” in low-income city neighborhoods racked by obesity and food insecurity. I was anticipating a touchy-feely report full of good intentions divorced from real-world considerations. My worst fears were not confirmed. Although they…
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Food Insecurity: Virginia Must Be Doing Something Right. But What Is It?
by James A. Bacon Question: Why does Virginia have the third lowest rate (tied with Massachusetts) of “food insecurity” among the 50 states? Given the Old Dominion’s low rates of unemployment and poverty and relatively high incomes, one would expect Virginians to be less at risk for going hungry. But look at the map above,…