Food Insecurity

The overdue farm bill is finally making its way through Congress, after the House agriculture committee recently advanced a proposal. Food assistance is likely to be one of the biggest sticking points as the draft moves forward.

The new summer EBT program will give an extra $120 to eligible school-age kids. But, families in Missouri and Kansas probably won’t get the money until late summer or fall.

The Missouri Department of Social Services’ call center issues ultimately denied eligible Missourians meaningful access to benefits, a judge found.

The state’s requirements comprise ‘one of the nation’s most stringent bans for receiving SNAP benefits,’ according to one report.

The program would provide $40 in food benefits for each month an eligible child is on summer break, loaded onto a card that can be used like a debit card to purchase groceries. Missouri's decision is nonbinding, and the state now has until Feb. 15 to submit a detailed plan to the federal government.

Roughly 429,000 Missouri children would be eligible to receive $51.5 million in food benefits next summer if the state chooses to participate in the federal program.

Hundreds of families received meal kits containing turkey, green beans, yams, turkey gravy and stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and more Wednesday at the organization’s resource center in Maryland Heights.

Over a year after a lawsuit alleged the state’s ‘dysfunctional’ SNAP call center violates federal law, low-income Missourians still face automatic disconnections and wait times of around an hour.

The Farm-to-School movement is out to revolutionize the humble school lunch with food grown on local farms. But the path from cropland to cafeteria is full of complicated twists and turns. A new wave of federal funding is trying to smooth the way.

A change in USDA policy will make it easier for schools to offer free meals to all students, but they will still have to pay for part of the cost.