The U.S. Department of Agriculture has canceled an annual report on food insecurity across the country. The Household Food Security Report has tracked the percentage of U.S. households struggling with access to food each year since 1995.
Sylvia Blaine is the CEO of the nonprofit Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. She says hunger reduction groups have long relied on data collected by the report.
“We determine where our programs, where to focus, our programs, where the resources are needed. And then we also are able to look at other states and see what states that may have similar issues to ours are doing well, so that we can reach out and learn from each other.”
The most recent report listed Arkansas as the most food-insecure state in the nation in 2023, with a rate of about 19% of households having inconsistent access to food. The USDA says the report was, quote, “redundant.” But Blaine says she hasn’t found another report that does the same work.
“You know, we can look at poverty levels through census data. We can look at SNAP rates, but that doesn’t measure food insecurity. And this report actually had some blind spots. I don’t think that it was accurately measuring food insecurity, but I do not believe that that is a reason to scrap it. I think we improve it.”
Without complete data from 2025, the last Household Food Security report will include data from 2024. The report is typically released each fall. Blaine says hunger relief organizations will continue to work with the data they have, and search for other ways to track food insecurity.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
