Opinions

My plan for helping America’s poor
The true measure of any society is how we take care of our children. With all of our country’s resources, no child should ever have to grow up in poverty. Yet every single night, all across America, kids go to sl...

Letter: Is there a food shortage in the world? And other questions.
September 19, 2016 Dear Hunger Notes, My name is A. C.. I am a 7th grader at Pella Middle school. We are doing a service project and I choose to do World Hunger. I want to do the best job I can. I still have a few questions. 1. Is there a food shortage in the world? 2. How is famine...

Health coverage, income, and poverty all improved decisively in 2015
For the first time since 1999, all three key indicators of well-being in the annual Census data moved decisively in the right direction in 2015. The poverty rate dropped from 14.8 percent to 13.5 percent, tying the largest improvement since 1968. The typical household’s income rose by 5.2 per...

In a fight between environmentalists and farmers, the bees lose. And that stings.
Bees have it rough. It’s not enough that they have to deal with bloodsucking varroa mites, a host of diseases and pathogens, disappearing habitat and a variety of agricultural chemicals designed to kill insects. They have also become pawns in the ag wars, the subject of dueling bee-death narrative...

August Hunger Notes: Candidates say little about poverty and hunger, Growing organic agriculture, Can farmers accept the prairie? and more
August 15, 2016 By Lane Vanderslice See Binyamin Appelbaum's The millions of Americans Donald Trump and Hi...

After 1996 welfare law, a weaker safety net and more children in deep poverty
Towards a transformed and more resilient agriculture sector in Africa
This article looks at the challenges that make it difficult to increase food productivity, create decent employment, and end inequalities in our food systems, and what it will take to transform agriculture in Africa....

Congress passed the Global Food Security Act. Here’s why that’s historic.

Cocoa and deforestation, it’s time to shift the paradigm
Cocoa is in crisis. The world’s cocoa plantations are well beyond their most productive years, and those who produce it are even older. Income from cocoa is so low that young people do not want to become cocoa farmers. And there is climate change....

The fight isn’t over for farm worker overtime
On June 2 the California State Assembly failed to pass AB2757, a bill that would give farm workers the same overtime pay that workers in urban areas have had since the 1930s. In the outcome, echoes can still be heard of those old rules. But the vote also makes clear that past certainties are certain...