Smithfield Foods joins with anti-hunger group to feed rural NC

Are urban areas or rural areas in the U.S. more likely to have residents unable to afford enough food?

If you are like many people, you probably think that hunger occurs at higher rates in urban areas. But you’re wrong. It’s our nation’s rural areas, which paradoxically grow most of the nation’s food, that face deeper struggles with hunger than metropolitan areas. This fact should set off alarm bells in this state considering that North Carolina has the second-highest rural population in the country, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes hundreds of thousands of children, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans and low-wage workers.

North Carolina ranks 13^th in the nation for food hardship – with 17 percent of households unable to afford enough food. Federal nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, WIC, child-care meals, school meals and after-school and summer meals offer proven solutions for reducing food hardship and improving health, academic and economic outcomes. These programs are particularly important for combating hunger in rural settings, since rural areas are underserved in other respects, including a lack of access to transportation, full-service grocery stores and social services.

To help connect those who need it most with federal food assistance programs, the Food Research & Action Center, or FRAC, and Smithfield Foods, which employs more than 10,000 people in North Carolina, recently joined forces to launch Rally Against Rural Hunger. This effort is a unique, comprehensive and multilevel program developed to address rural hunger nationally and in North Carolina. Nationally, the program will raise awareness of rural hunger and the strategies to address this issue. In North Carolina, the project will work to increase participation of those living in rural areas – particularly Scotland, Robeson, Duplin and Lenoir counties – in federal nutrition programs.

SNAP, for instance, helps households – including many facing struggles and getting help for short periods of time – stretch their food dollars. Research shows that half of all Americans receive food stamps at some point during childhood and half receive them at some point between the ages of 18 and 65 – typically for just a few months. It is a proven and effective program that pays dividends for decades in improved health, education and earnings, while also stimulating local economies. Each dollar of federal SNAP benefits, for example, generates $1.79 in local economic activity, the kind of boost desperately needed by many rural communities.

In addition to working to increase participation in SNAP, the program will work directly with school districts, schools, county officials and others to connect organizations with federal child-nutrition programs, which help ensure children get the nutrition they need for their physical and cognitive development. It should come as no surprise that low-income children enrolled in free or reduced-price school meals grow up to be healthier and better educated than those who miss out on these programs.

School districts can consider opting into the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in high-poverty areas to offer school meals at no cost to all of their students through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. This option greatly increases school meal participation, while eliminating the administrative burden and costs associated with collecting and processing school meal applications. Together, FRAC and Smithfield are working to better connect more eligible people in North Carolina to these vital programs.

This joint effort could not come at a better time as many rural children are out of school for the summer and no longer have access to the school meals they rely upon during the school year. Getting more of these children enrolled in summer nutrition programs will ensure they have a safe place to play and learn while having access to healthy meals. These programs are particularly critical for low-income children who often experience a summer learning slide and return to school academically behind their peers.

According to FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take A Vacation report, North Carolina ranks 27^th in the country for summer meals participation. If the state achieved FRAC’s benchmark of reaching 40 children with summer meals for every 100 who receive school lunches, the state would receive an additional $11 million in federal reimbursement.

As a global food company, Smithfield understands the benefits of proper nutrition and values its responsibility to help its neighbors. This program builds on Smithfield’s food donation program, Helping Hungry Homes, which gives millions of pounds of protein to food banks, school nutrition programs, disaster relief efforts and community outreach programs across the country each year.

With this program, Smithfield and FRAC are empowering North Carolina to make huge progress in its fight against hunger by connecting more eligible families to these and other federal nutrition programs with proven effectiveness.

It’s a serious response to a serious problem. It’s time to Rally Against Rural Hunger.

This story was originally published June 14, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Smithfield Foods joins with anti-hunger group to feed rural NC."