By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Between 2007 and 2009, Arkansas had a higher percentage of households without consistent, dependable access to food than any other state in the nation, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Over the three-year period, an average of 17.7 percent of Arkansas households experienced “food insecurity,” meaning that at some point they were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to maintain an active, healthy life, according to the report, “Household Food Security in the United States, 2009.”
Rhonda Sanders, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, said the report was “disturbing” but not surprising.
“We just had a report come out this summer (from the group Feeding America) that reflected that we had the highest percentage of children who were food-insecure in the nation, and now we’ve got the highest overall number,” she said.
Sanders said Arkansas may not have been hit as hard as most states by the recent recession, but “unfortunately Arkansas already was a low-income state, so any loss to us really starts getting into the resources that families need to make it day in and day out.”
The Agriculture Department’s report is based on annual national surveys. The 2009 survey included about 118 million American households, about 1.1 million of them in Arkansas.
The margin of error, which varies from state to state, is plus or minus 2.83 percentage points for Arkansas. Arkansas’ food insecurity rate is the highest in the report, although some states are close enough to be within the margin of error.
The state’s percentage has increased since 2004-06, when an estimated 14.3 percent of Arkansas households experienced food insecurity.
The national food insecurity rate for 2007-09 was 13.5 percent, with a margin of error of 0.28 percentage points. In 2004-06, the national rate was 11.3 percent.
Arkansas was one of five states with a higher rate than the national average in 2007-09, taking into account the margin of error. The others are Texas with 17.4 percent, Mississippi with 17.1 percent, Georgia with 15.2 percent and North Carolina with 14.8 percent.
Households with severe food insecurity, described in the report as “very low” security, accounted for 6.4 percent of Arkansas households in 2007-09, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points. The state’s rate in 2004-06 was 5.8 percent, so the change is within the margin of error and not statistically significant.
Nationwide, 5.2 percent of households experienced very low food security in 2007-09, compared to 3.9 percent in 2004-06. The national increase was greater than the margin of error of 0.13 percent.
National findings in the report include:
—Food insecurity is at its highest level since food security surveys began in 1995.
—Children experienced food insecurity in 2009 in 4.2 million households, or 10.6 percent of households with children. Children experienced very low food security in 469,000 households, or 1.2 percent of households with children.
—Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average among households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line, among households with children headed by single parents and among black and Hispanic households.
—The typical household with food security spent 33 percent more on food in 2009 than the typical household of the same size and composition with food insecurity.
—Fifty-seven percent of households with food insecurity reported that in the previous month they had participated in one or more of the three largest federal food and nutrition assistance programs.
Sanders said the report reflects an urgent need to support local, state and federal food and nutrition programs.
“Our food banks reported in 2009 supporting more people than they’ve ever served before, somewhere around 433,000 people,” she said. “All of the different food pantries are still reporting a difficult time at keeping food on the shelf. There’s just a lot of people who are in need.”
