Media Coverage

The White House Conference on Hunger and Nutrition was Thursday. It brought several anti hunger advocates, farmers, nutritionists, community leaders and policymakers to discuss solutions for hunger and healthy eating in the United States. Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, the executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, was at the conference. She spoke with WYSO’s Alejandro Figueroa about the national plan to end hunger and what it means for Ohioans.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration is using federal stimulus money to grant $15 million worth of Ohio-produced meat, eggs and dairy products to Ohio food banks.

“Food banks have been lightening the bag, lightening the boxes, rationing food," Hamler-Fugitt said. "We're currently providing families, Ohioans, that turn to us with two fewer days of meals because we're trying to stretch what we have on hand. But the situation is very severe.”

With the legislature on a break until after the November election, the food banks turned to Gov. Mike DeWine in June, asking him for $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Ohio foodbanks have taken some pretty dramatic steps to deal with the crisis. For example, many are rationing food, typically by cutting a five-to-seven day allotment of food by two days.

Meanwhile, they continue to appeal to Gov. Mike DeWine for $50 million in emergency funding as the state sits on unprecedented balances of $7.4 billion.

Ohioans have seen some respite from high fuel costs in recent months. But those who provide food to millions of poor people in the state say their situation is only deteriorating.

Global supply-chain problems, labor shortages, the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and other megatrends are all combining to make them worry for the first time that they just won’t have enough food for everybody who needs it, Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, said on Monday.

“We’re down about a sixth and it’s declining,” she said, referring to food supplies, particularly from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the same time, she said, demand is spiking because of high prices at the grocery store, increasing costs for housing and utilities and health care.

That means food at Ohio’s foodbanks is “going out a hell of a lot faster than it’s coming in,” she said.

As inflation has spiked and remained steadily high, food banks and food pantries nationwide report facing record demands for their services at a time when skyrocketing food costs and supply chain issues have made it difficult to meet those needs. Food assistance programs in Ohio and in Greater Columbus have hardly been immune to such woes.