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Right now, 42 million Americans are caught in a bureaucratic mess. As a government shutdown drags on, the USDA at first refused to use emergency funds for November SNAP benefits. Only after a court order did the agency agree to pay out half the usual amount, leaving millions with just 50% of their expected support, which will arrive weeks late.
Communication from government agencies has been anything but clear. SNAP recipients have received conflicting letters, emails and text messages and agency officials seem just as confused as the people they’re supposed to be helping. Meanwhile, food banks across the country report lines stretching around blocks, filled with parents, children, veterans, government employees, seniors, and everyday people looking for their next meal.
In Lewis County, 17% of residents rely on SNAP and three-quarters of SNAP recipients work full-time jobs. One of the bitter ironies is that the places where food is grown are among the hungriest in America. Nine out of 10 counties with the highest rates of food insecurity are rural, and farming-dependent counties have seen food insecurity rise nearly 12% in the last decade, even as U.S. farm output nearly doubled over the past forty years.
While we feed much of the world, farm counties at home fall deeper into hunger.
The local food infrastructure that once supported these communities has nearly vanished. Small meat processors have gone out of business. Independent grain mills have closed. Instead, vast centralized corporate plants hundreds or thousands of miles away now handle most food processing. That leaves rural counties unable to process their own crops and livestock, breaking the link between local farms and local tables.
You can see it happening in real time with the closure of the Chehalis Darigold plant, a facility that once anchored the local dairy economy. That departure means not just lost jobs but more food insecurity, while critical infrastructure disappears and disrupts the flow of resources through the region.
If we’re not coming up with solutions that address hunger by rebuilding local and regional food infrastructure, then we’re giving into a system that will always be at risk of sudden collapse. When food processing, distribution and wages are controlled from outside our communities, hunger becomes an imported problem. And it will only get worse as we continue to allow corporate consolidation and shareholder greed to hollow out rural economies.
So what can we do? First of all, reversing rural hunger doesn’t start in D.C., it starts at the local level. Take Michigan’s “10 Cents a Meal” program as an example, where Republican legislators passed a law reimbursing schools for every meal using locally grown fruits and vegetables. It now serves nearly 600,000 children and supports more than 240 farms statewide.
Washington has taken steps with some farm-to-school networks, but we could go further. Adopting a program like Michigan’s could send tens of millions of dollars back into rural farm economies here, instead of funneling it to distant distributors.
Outside of the education system, counties can play a role by establishing local food policy councils that bring together farmers, processors, distributors, retailers, food banks, schools and health organizations to coordinate efforts and identify gaps in local food infrastructure.
We could build county-level food hubs that aggregate products from small farmers and distribute them through regional networks. This would cut transportation costs, reduce waste and create stable local markets. Plus, it would keep our local resources here instead of extracting them to a corporate headquarters.
At the city level, local governments and economic development councils should prioritize attracting or creating food processing infrastructure that serves local producers. Even without legislation or council action, school boards can take their own initiative to prioritize sourcing from regional food systems.
A modest goal of sourcing 10-15% of food locally would create big demand and bring fresher food to students while supporting area agriculture.
There’s no reason rural counties producing the food should also be home to so much insecurity. The gap between abundance and need isn’t inevitable. If farmers, governments, and communities work together, we can make sure everyone can afford to eat.
SNAP benefits aren’t a shameful sign of someone’s personal failure, they’re meant to be a stop-gap when times are tough. But these days, they’ve become a harsh reminder that in the richest country in the world we’ve failed to provide an economy where working people can survive without assistance.
In the short term, the threats to food security for tens of millions of Americans must end before more families go another night without a meal. Long term, the solution is resilience: strong, community-controlled food systems that can ride out national crises.
By investing in our local farms, we can create a stable, dignified path back to food sovereignty — and make sure those who grow our food can feed themselves first.
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Zac Eckstein is chair of the Lewis County Democratic Party. Learn more about the party at https://lewiscountydemocrats.org.
