The Food Crisis Hits Home

We Can't Control Costs, But We Can Lend a Hand

The increase in food prices is wreaking havoc across the globe, but the food crisis is not confined to "over there" in Egypt, Bangladesh or Haiti. It's affecting many people in the Washington region.

We all need to balance our checkbooks, and escalating food costs are making that more difficult. For less affluent members of our community, the challenges posed by rising food prices can be nearly impossible to meet. In response, many low-income residents are turning to less expensive and less healthful canned and processed foods. Some have been forced to cut back on how much they eat, skipping meals and going to bed with empty stomachs. Summer camp lunch programs are trimming fresh fruits and vegetables. Such changes will contribute to long-term health issues, including obesity.

The problem is perhaps worst for our region's most vulnerable population: those without homes. The situation at Miriam's Kitchen, a feeding program in Foggy Bottom, illustrates the vicious cycle. Steve Badt, who runs the kitchen at Miriam's, has been forced to cut back on the amount of meat and fresh produce he uses. While Badt has always had to be careful about higher-cost ingredients, he now must keep close tabs on all the ingredients that go into the breakfasts he and his volunteers prepare for about 300 people each morning. If he goes over budget this year, he will be forced to cut out entire categories of foods. This, in turn, would reduce the need for the prep work done by volunteers. Badt fears he would then be forced to ask some volunteers to stop coming, which would undermine morale built up over years. Worse, many volunteers are also donors, and any fall-off in donations would intensify the cycle.

All of this would be devastating, because Miriam's -- like other nonprofits that work in needy parts of the world -- prides itself on its community roots and on integrating local people into its programs. While none of us in this region can individually or collectively control food price increases, we can ameliorate both their short- and long-term effects by working within our community to harness local expertise and vital resources. We can develop sustainable solutions to address the issues facing us today, and we can work to prevent future strains on our community feeding programs.

In the short term, we can work with and contribute to the many private organizations, such as Miriam's Kitchen, that provide food to those in need. The use of food banks and soup kitchens has dramatically increased over the past year. Opportunities to volunteer and contribute exist all over our region. We can also patronize one of the many farmers markets in our region that sell wholesome, reasonably priced food.

For the long term, we can advocate and work toward policies that support farmers markets, community-supported agriculture and other initiatives to grow and sell food in a sustainable manner. A particular focus is public-private efforts to distribute more reasonably priced fresh food in low-income neighborhoods.

With food prices seemingly on a one-way escalator up, it's especially important that we in the Washington area "think globally and act locally." The time to act is now.

-- Arthur B. Keys Jr.

Arlington

The writer is president and chief executive of International Relief and Development.