National

A nonprofit is teaming up with health care providers, insurance companies and community-based organizations to give food-insecure U.S. households a reprieve this holiday season. 

Driving the news: The nonprofit About Fresh is offering financial relief to thousands of Americans in need through a prepaid debit card program — a new safety net as higher food costs and extreme winter weather conditions exacerbate a nationwide hunger crisis.

The big picture: Food is a critical expense during the holidays, according to Josh Trautwein, CEO and c0-founder of About Fresh. 

"We think a lot about the erosion of culture and heritage that results from food insecurity. And we feel that the most acutely during the holidays,” says Trautwein. 

"You're not doing family dinners, you're definitely not doing cookouts, you're definitely not having dinners with neighbors, you're probably not having people over for the holidays if you're food insecure, because you can't afford it.”

How it works: In 2018, About Fresh launched Fresh Connect, a produce prescription program that provides a stipend through a prepaid debit card for participants to purchase fresh food items at local grocery stores.

As of late, 3,250 people across Massachusetts, Oregon, West Virginia and D.C. are enrolled in Fresh Connect, while over $200,000 in transactions are authorized per month.

The program's health care, insurance and community-based partners determine who is eligible and how much they will be allocated monthly — typically between $50 to $200 per cardholder, organizers say. 

Among those partners is Boston Medical Center, which has been conducting a USDA NIFA-funded study of Fresh Connect's effectiveness in addressing food insecurity among low-income families with young children during the pandemic.

Yes, but: In order to be enrolled, a person needs to go through a participating organization partnered with the program, like a health care provider.

About 26 million Americans, or 8% of the country, didn't have health insurance as of the first quarter of 2022, per an HHS report. 

What they're saying: "Our health care system has been primarily oriented towards taking care of people only after they're sick," says Trautwein. "Everything that we are trying to do is to keep people from not getting sick by making sure that they have access to healthy food."

People living with food insecurity can experience adverse, lasting impacts on health, including an increased risk of chronic diseases as well as impacts on child development and mental health.  

Of the roughly 10% of U.S. households that are food insecure, people of color are disproportionately affected, which can worsen existing health inequities.  

Zoom out: Food banks, a major resource for those who are food insecure, typically experience an increase in demand during the holidays. 

This year, that's compounding with extreme weather, inflation and both food pantry supply and funding shortages across the country. 

The bottom line: "Our ability to increase healthy food purchasing power for the community of households we serve who are experiencing food insecurity has a cascading economic impact on the ability to afford the rest of the holidays,” Trautwein tells Axios.

Teaming up for holiday hunger relief

It's providing healthy food purchasing power for thousands of low-income Americans.

Illustration of a hands holding a fork and knife next to an empty plate sitting on an American dollar

Food security

Health

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

Historically costly indoor hydroponic farms are becoming more accessible to small-scale U.S. farmers. 

Why it matters: While extreme weather exacerbated by climate change hurts crop yields, some small farmers are turning to ag-tech solutions that have long been sequestered from anyone but the rich. 

The big picture: Indoor hydroponic farms, or just indoor farms, are tech-driven, weather-controlled production sites that grow crops in nutrient solutions rather than soil.

They use less water than traditional farming methods and take up less space — and are popping up everywhere from Alabama to Hawaii.  

Axios' Jennifer Kingson writes that while indoor growing can't completely replace outdoor growing for crops like lettuce, it's expected to start filling in when climate change leads to more outdoor crop failures. 

Nearly two-thirds of farmers surveyed across 15 U.S. states reported sizable crop and income loss due to drought conditions last year, per the American Farm Bureau Federation. 

What they're saying: According to Nona Yehia, CEO and co-founder of Vertical Harvest Farms, indoor farming has long been associated with a major barrier to access — high start-up and operating costs. 

"As we grow as an industry, that cost is going to come down ... but I think that's going to take time," says Yehia.

Vertical Harvest Farms is now working to bring 10 new vertical farms to U.S. food deserts within the next five years, Yehia tells Axios.

"Furthering equity is where we really think hydroponic growing will mean something to people. It'll mean something to our families, our communities, our neighborhoods." 

On a hyper-local level, indoor farming is being explored as a food insecurity mitigation tool by communities in urban food deserts, according to Lisa Price, an Oregon State University professor of anthropology who researches food systems.

Price notes the practice could be a way to "try and correct ... the tremendous reduction of Black farmers in this country," which is largely due to historic land loss and racial discrimination in federal farm assistance.   

Price tells Axios that community-centric indoor farming is "just one element of a larger trend for Black and brown food initiatives," from the Navajo Nation providing tribal members with materials and training to Indiana's first hydroponic container farms established by the Black-led farm New Age Provisions last year.

"They are providing a service to these communities for fresh produce, while also making a living."

Meanwhile, Virginia's Babylon Micro-Farms sells indoor farming units optimized for hydroponic produce growth.

A single farm, roughly the size of a bookshelf, goes for around $15,000.

At Boston-based ag-tech company Freight Farms, commercial-scale mobile hydroponic farms also present accessible options for small farmers, according to CEO Rick Vanzura. 

Priced at $149,000, Vanzura says that the Freight Farms upfront cost is comparatively affordable.

"If you think about it in the world of commercial farming, it's quite low," Vanzura tells Axios, pointing to the startup costs for traditional open-field farms, which reportedly range from $11,000 to over $5 million.

Of note: "It's not for everyone," Hamilton Horne, owner of South Carolina's King Tide Farms, says of the cost. 

Horne tells Axios he spent roughly $160,000 to get his Freight Farms container farm up and running last year. "[It] is a lot of money for one individual to put up for something like this," Horne says. 

Yes, but: The returns have since made Horne glad he invested, especially with the recent rise in demand for the varieties of greens he grows and sells to local chefs and restaurants. 

That surge in demand is in part thanks to the extreme winter weather conditions that lashed much of the U.S., last month, forcing many farmers in Charleston to replant their crops, while Horne says his went untouched. 

The bottom line: "With the hurricane this year, everybody's crops around here got ruined. We just went through a frost hit, everybody's got knocked down again," Horne tells Axios. "I'm the lone guy standing strong." 

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to note that a single farm from Virginia's Babylon Micro-Farms costs around $15,000, not $3,500.

Indoor farming isn't just for the rich

It's known for being costly, but some are working to make it more accessible.

Photo illustration of a farmer holding a plant with water droplets made of money. 

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Food

Historically costly indoor hydroponic farms are becoming more accessible to small-scale U.S. farmers. Why it matters: While extreme weather exacerbated by climate change hurts <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="crop yields" data-vars-click-url="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/05/crops-climate-drought-food/" data-vars-content-id="4fdc361f-3765-4514-b3d0-6828c026a484" data-vars-headline="Indoor farming isn&#x27;t just for the rich" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/05/crops-climate-drought-food/" target="_blank">crop yields</a>, some small farmers are turning to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="ag-tech" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/05/26/vertical-farming" data-vars-content-id="4fdc361f-3765-4514-b3d0-6828c026a484" data-vars-headline="Indoor farming isn&#x27;t just for the rich" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/05/26/vertical-farming" target="_self">ag-tech</a> solutions that have long been sequestered from anyone but the rich.

A new pilot initiative is tapping into solar-powered tech as a solution to the water crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of people living in colonias along the U.S. and Mexico border.

Driving the news: SOURCE Global, a public benefit corporation, is partnering up with Texas politicians and nonprofits to provide clean drinking water access to several colonias — unincorporated, low-income communities with limited resources, organizers tell Axios. 

The water crisis has been driven by climate-related impacts on statewide water supply as well as a lack of political will to connect colonias to municipal water sources. 

The backstory: For the largely low-income, Latino residents living in colonias — communities that don't have basic human services like traditional water infrastructure — the state's increasingly unreliable water supply, which relies heavily on drought-stricken rivers and reservoirs, worsens existing barriers to access.

"Colonia residents bought their land because they saw the opportunity to be homeowners, but they were never properly informed of the lack of political will to bring municipal water service to colonias," Laura Ponce, executive director of the El Paso County nonprofit Project Bravo, tells Axios in an email.

"Without a safe source for drinking water, low-income colonia families take health risks like drinking potable water delivered by trucks, storing water in unsealed large containers, and minimizing their water consumption," says Ponce.

Olga Ramos, a county commissioner in Maverick County, Texas, tells Axios in an email that there are more than 19 colonias in her precinct alone — and most are without access to safe water. 

"It’s a problem we have to solve, but building water infrastructure is a complicated and expensive task, one that could take years to complete, and these families can’t wait that long," says Ramos.

A new pilot initiative led by SOURCE Global is aiming to mitigate this by installing solar-powered tech that produces clean drinking water for about 500 colonia households across Hueco Tanks and Quemado, which are in El Paso County and Maverick County. 

SOURCE hydropanels suck up water vapor from the air, drawing only pure water molecules before condensing it into liquid, leaving pollutants behind, then transforming those molecules into liquid water and adding calcium and magnesium.

The estimated total funding needed to outfit the households in the two colonias is roughly $3 million. They've secured $150,000 of that amount and are looking to get the rest through the NADB's Community Assistance Program.

What they're saying: Ramos sees the hydropanels as a quick, cost-effective way to give colonia residents safe water at their homes. 

"They also don’t rely on groundwater, which we know is threatened by drought," Ramos says. 

A recently published Texas Department of Agriculture report found that climate instability — which is linked to water restrictions, failed crops, and increased risk of wildfires and floods — is also imperiling the state's food supply, per the Texas Tribune. 

Zoom out: "People who have been underserved historically are getting locked into being underserved, because of the finiteness of the resource [water] and the nature of the headwinds that are facing all of us with climate change," SOURCE CEO Cody Friesen tells Axios.

Yes, but: Ponce, of the nonprofit Project Bravo, says the hydropanels only provide enough water for drinking and cooking. 

"They do not produce enough water for washing clothes, flushing toilets, bathing, and other functions that are needed to run a household," says Ponce, adding that while the SOURCE project is an "ethical short-term solution," bringing piped water to the colonias is the "ideal solution."

The bottom line: "These families still need the work of ... grassroots groups to make sure our elected officials don't forget them," Ponce tells Axios. 

First look: Clean water for Texas colonias

A renewable tech pilot program is bringing drinking water to border colonias.

Photo illustration of an elderly person resting on a cane, a large dripping faucet and desert landscape.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Water insecurity

Climate change

A new pilot initiative is tapping into solar-powered tech as a solution to the water crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of people living in <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="colonias" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/04/13/in-photos-life-along-the-us-mexico-border" data-vars-content-id="a935cbbf-11fc-4746-86e0-7d0fc0b350b3" data-vars-headline="First look: Clean water for Texas colonias" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/04/13/in-photos-life-along-the-us-mexico-border" target="_self">colonias</a> along the U.S. and Mexico border.Driving the news: SOURCE Global, a <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="public benefit corporation" data-vars-click-url="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/public_benefit_corporation#:~:text=A%20public%20benefit%20corporation%20is,a%20responsible%20and%20sustainable%20manner." data-vars-content-id="a935cbbf-11fc-4746-86e0-7d0fc0b350b3" data-vars-headline="First look: Clean water for Texas colonias" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/public_benefit_corporation#:~:text=A%20public%20benefit%20corporation%20is,a%20responsible%20and%20sustainable%20manner." target="_blank">public benefit corporation</a>, is partnering up with Texas politicians and nonprofits to provide clean drinking water access to several colonias — unincorporated, low-income communities with limited resources, organizers tell Axios.

A new study finds that drought and flood-causing rains are linked to increases in deadly diarrhea-related illnesses for young children in the Global South.

The big picture: This further demonstrates the role of climate-related impacts on the inequitable burden of disease.

Context: For the study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers examined USAID's Demographic and Health Surveys data 0f more than 600,000 children from 51 low- and middle-income countries collected between 2000 and 2019 and compared them with climate trends in those places.

They found evidence that periods with heavy precipitation events and droughts correlated with reported symptoms of diarrhea for children under the age of three — one of the leading causes of child mortality worldwide. 

What they're saying: During extreme rains or droughts, there's an increase in the rates of risk for diarrheal infection, putting malnourished children in harm's way to an even greater degree, according to lead author Anna Dimitrova, a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Droughts can lead people to consume water from unsafe sources and to reduce their hygiene practices, according to Dimitrova, while heavy rains can lead to the contamination of drinking water from otherwise clean sources.

Both magnify exposure to bacteria species associated with gastrointestinal infections.

"In the tropical savanna, [climate change] is increasing risk of droughts, in the humid subtropical zones, risk of floods," Dimitrova tells Axios.

"With climate change, the risks are amplified because of the lack of clean water."

The study looked at households with access to disinfected, piped water during extreme rainfall and drought events, and found that children with access to clean water during these periods were less likely to report diarrheal symptoms.

"Water disinfection, we found, is one of the key factors that can reduce the risk," says Dimitrova. 

The bottom line: As climate change increases the risks and severity of certain extreme weather events, public health interventions could reduce rising exposure to diarrheal diseases for children in developing countries.

Diarrheal diseases are preventable with public health interventions such as immunization, hygiene practices, access to water and sanitization — all of which should be constructed with climate hazards in mind, Dimitrova tells Axios.

Drought, extreme rains linked to infectious diseases in kids

A new look at climate-related impacts and the inequitable burden of disease.

Photo illustration of a collage of bacteria, water, cracked earth, children carrying water and children wading in water.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP, Sunil Pradhan/Anadolu Agency, Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A new study finds that drought and flood-causing rains are linked to increases in deadly diarrhea-related illnesses for young children in the Global South.The big picture: This further demonstrates the role of climate-related impacts on the inequitable <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="burden of disease" data-vars-click-url="https://nccid.ca/publications/exploring-the-concept-of-burden-of-disease/" data-vars-content-id="af52bb66-1a6c-4435-ba65-7578eb5cf4da" data-vars-headline="Drought, extreme rains linked to infectious diseases in kids" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://nccid.ca/publications/exploring-the-concept-of-burden-of-disease/" target="_blank">burden of disease</a>.

Increasingly hungry tribal nations are facing an uncertain future, as expanded food assistance benefits are about to run out and it's not clear whether they'll find a stable funding source for future aid. 

The big picture: Anti-hunger activists warn that this month's expiration of increased SNAP benefits will hurt food-insecure populations — and temporary federal pilot programs don't have any guarantees of enough funding to fill the gaps. 

What they're saying: Heather Dawn Thompson, director of the USDA's Office of Tribal Relations, tells Axios that without food assistance pilot programs that empower local and regional food systems, "we are in trouble." 

One example is the LFPA, or Local Food Purchase Assistance program, a pilot that provides funds for state, territory and tribal governments to purchase foods directly from local producers to distribute to community members.

The LFPA is in its second funding cycle, with tribes competing for $100 million. 

"[The amount] is historic, for sure, but certainly not enough to maintain it long-term," says Thompson. 

Yes, but: Given the LFPA's status as a temporary program, it would have to be institutionalized and fully funded by Congress in the 2023 farm bill. 

The 2023 farm bill will be one of the most significant congressional spending packages this year, with food and climate provisions expected to be among the most divisive, reports Politico.

While the USDA has yet to take any public policy positions on the farm bill, Thompson tells Axios that tribal nations support the expansion of the pilot projects.

Meanwhile: The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) provides monthly food packages intended to supplement meals in food-insecure households, acting as a more accessible alternative to SNAP for rural reservations. 

Tribal leaders nationwide are calling for Congress to expand the FDPIR in this year's farm bill, per Public News Service, while the tribes helping operate the program report not having much say in their diet, according to Roll Call. 

The 2018 farm bill established a fund allowing tribes to buy foods from local vendors for the packages under the FDPIR, which launched in 2021 as a pilot project. 

Thompson describes both food assistance programs — the LFPA and the FDPIR pilot — as "off to really good pilot project starts," but in need of "institutional investment long-term." 

The backstory: Food insecurity is a serious problem facing Indigenous communities in the U.S., where nearly half of Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are thought to be food-insecure, per a 2022 study. 

"[Food insecurity] is very much exacerbated in Indian Country where most of our reservations are very rural and isolated, and are food deserts," Thompson, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, tells Axios. 

Historic reasons — such as land loss and the destruction of many Indigenous foodways — play a part in why the tribes were put in the locations that they are, Thompson says. 

A legacy of policies like these compound with present-day legislation in further exacerbating the problem, as anti-hunger activists warn that federal changes will significantly impact impoverished communities.

While some states have already ended increased pandemic emergency allotments, or EAs, that served as additional benefits issued to SNAP-eligible households, more than half maintained them into 2023.

But under the omnibus bill, all of those will universally expire at the end of the month.

Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, says that while a provision of the omnibus bill did end the extra food assistance benefits, the funding will "theoretically" be reallocated to pay for added investments in child nutrition, like a permanent Summer EBT program.  

"But that was paid for by cutting SNAP," Berg tells Axios. "You will see a significant decline in the money people have to pay for food."

Of note: Around a quarter of Indigenous peoples in the U.S. receive a form of federal food assistance. In some tribal communities, the rate can be higher than 50%.  

Context: From marine heatwaves decimating species of salmon in the Yukon River to the decline of Alaskan snow crabs, climate change is contributing to the loss of traditional food sources, escalating food insecurity for Indigenous communities.

Coastal tribal nations in particular are experiencing dramatic climate-fueled impacts to their food sources, which is "significantly increasing their food insecurity," says Thompson.   

"They are the canary, if you will, in the coal mine."

What we're watching: Tribal nations are "very clear" in their messaging that they do not want to be incorporated as subsets of state, as they are with food programs like SNAP that are currently run by state agencies, Thompson tells Axios.

"[Tribal nations] don't simply want increases in federal nutrition programs, although that's very important and key for a lot of folks. They really want to rebuild their own food systems." 

Exclusive: Tribal nations face threats to food security funding

Increasingly hungry tribal nations are facing an uncertain future.

Photo illustration of silhouettes of Yurok fishermen, a member of the Haida/Tlingít nation harvesting traditional plants and the US Capitol building.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post, Bernard Friel/UCG/Universal Images Group, Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Increasingly hungry tribal nations are facing an uncertain future, as expanded food assistance benefits are about to run out and it&#x27;s not clear whether they&#x27;ll find a stable funding source for future aid. The big picture: Anti-hunger activists warn that this month&#x27;s <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="expiration" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/28/covid-snap-benefits-end-february" data-vars-content-id="b0357580-3a16-4925-a87d-83a8b2c4dac2" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Tribal nations face threats to food security funding" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/28/covid-snap-benefits-end-february" target="_self">expiration</a> of increased SNAP benefits will hurt food-insecure populations — and temporary federal pilot programs don&#x27;t have any guarantees of enough funding to fill the gaps.

Ayurella Horn-Muller

Stories

Exclusive: Tribal nations face threats to food security funding

First look: Clean water for Texas colonias

Drought, extreme rains linked to infectious diseases in kids

Indoor farming isn't just for the rich

Teaming up for holiday hunger relief