The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced it will terminate its long-running Household Food Security annual report. The resource is one of the country’s most comprehensive tools for measuring hunger and food insecurity.
The USDA justified the decision as a cost-saving measure, claiming in a statement that the survey is “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” The final report, which will include 2024 data, is expected in October 2025, according to the agency.
Produced for the past three decades by the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), the report offers insights used by researchers, policymakers, and advocates working to reduce food insecurity in the U.S. Anti-hunger advocates argue the move will make it far more difficult to track the impacts of policy changes, including recent cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to discontinue its annual survey tracking food security data is deeply troubling,” Eric Mitchell, President of the Alliance to End Hunger, says. “By cancelling the survey, USDA is sending a signal that tracking and battling hunger is no longer a priority.”
According to the most recent ERS data, one in seven U.S. households experienced food insecurity. That is roughly 47.4 million people, including 13.8 million children.
“Without data, we lose the opportunity to measure meaningful progress, track the need, and ensure policymakers have the insight to make decisions to keep our country healthy and strong,” says Crystal FitzSimons, President of the Food Research & Action Center.
Although advocates are looking for options to fill the research gap, Karen Perry Stillerman, Deputy Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists argues that there are no options that match the scope. “How are the data redundant?” she asks. “The USDA survey serves as the official data source of national food insecurity statistics.”
FitzSimons sees only risks to discontinuing the report: “Ending data collection will not end hunger,” she says, “it will only make it a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to address.”
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Photo courtesy of Vitaly Gariev, Unsplash
