February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index

How to focus anti-hunger efforts not on charity but on the root causes of food insecurity, improving public health, and reducing income inequality. Food banks and food pantries have proliferated in response to an economic emergency. The loss of manufacturing jobs combined with the recession of the early 1980s and Reagan administration cutbacks in federal programs led to an explosion in the growth of food charity. This was meant to be a stopgap measure, but the jobs never came back, and the “emergency food system” became an industry. In Big Hunger, Andrew Fisher takes a critical look at the business of hunger and offers a new vision for the anti-hunger movement. From one perspective, anti-hunger leaders have been extraordinarily effective. Food charity is embedded in American civil society, and federal food programs have remained intact while other anti-poverty programs have been eliminated or slashed. But anti-hunger advocates are missing an essential element of the problem: economic inequality driven by low wages. Reliant on corporate donations of food and money, anti-hunger organizations have failed to hold business accountable for offshoring jobs, cutting benefits, exploiting workers and rural communities, and resisting wage increases. They have become part of a “hunger industrial complex” that seems as self-perpetuating as the more famous military-industrial complex. Fisher lays out a vision that encompasses a broader definition of hunger characterized by a focus on public health, economic justice, and economic democracy. He points to the work of numerous grassroots organizations that are leading the way in these fields as models for the rest of the anti-hunger sector. It is only through approaches like these that we can hope to end hunger, not just manage it.

In the US, there is a wide-ranging network of at least 370 food banks, and more than 60,000 hunger-relief organizations such as food pantries and meal programs. These groups provide billions of meals a year to people in need. And yet hunger still affects one in nine Americans. What are we doing wrong? In Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, Katie Martin argues that if handing out more and more food was the answer, we would have solved the problem of hunger decades ago. Martin instead presents a new model for charitable food, one where success is measured not by pounds of food distributed but by lives changed. The key is to focus on the root causes of hunger. When we shift our attention to strategies that build empathy, equity, and political will, we can implement real solutions. Martin shares those solutions in a warm, engaging style, with simple steps that anyone working or volunteering at a food bank or pantry can take today. Some are short-term strategies to create a more dignified experience for food pantry clients: providing client choice, where individuals select their own food, or redesigning a waiting room with better seating and a designated greeter. Some are longer-term: increasing the supply of healthy food, offering job training programs, or connecting clients to other social services. And some are big picture: joining the fight for living wages and a stronger social safety net. These strategies are illustrated through inspiring success stories and backed up by scientific research. Throughout, readers will find a wealth of proven ideas to make their charitable food organizations more empathetic and more effective. As Martin writes, it takes more than food to end hunger. Picking up this insightful, lively book is a great first step.

In the 1980s, record numbers of Americans have qualified for food stamps and food aid in other forms, despite increasingly rigid standards of eligibility. After more than two decades of such assistance, hunger and malnutrition remain widespread among low-income groups in the United States. This new study examines the policy processes that have shaped food assistance programs since the Kennedy administration and looks at prospects for resolving the political stalemate over food aid that has overtaken national policy. Following an analysis of the dynamics of the policy process, Professor Maney explores the various changes that have affected assistance policy since its first phase beginning in 1933. She describes the shifting course of aid policy, which first aimed at supporting farm income and disposing of agricultural surpluses and more recently has attempted to deal primarily with hunger and severe malnutrition. Focusing on conflicts over policy objectives and budget, the author traces the ups and downs of the struggle between the executive branch and Congress to control both policy and appropriations. Other topics considered are the role of Department of Agriculture planners and administrators, the influence of powerful agricultural interests, the efforts of antipoverty and civil rights activists to secure more equitable food distribution in the rural South, and the effects of joblessness on food assistance policy. A clear and balanced analysis of one of the gravest policy dilemmas facing the nation, this book is an important resource for professionals, politicians, academics, and students concerned with public policy, social issues, government, and contemporary political economy.