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The Big Picture

March 21, 2008 on 3:54 pm | In Main Category | No Comments

We are big fans of the local food banks. As you may have heard, POH relies on the San Francisco and Alameda County Foodbanks for great deals on food items and plenty of free, fresh produce. Well, like the rest of us, the Food Banks are feeling the pain of this slowing economy. The Wall Street Journal has a sobering article on the troubles facing our nation’s food banks:

Add another institution to those getting squeezed by America’s economic crunch: soup kitchens.

Across the country, groups that provide food to people in need are scrambling to make up for a loss of government-provided surplus items as commodity prices have soared. Surpluses have dropped as some commodities, like corn, are being turned into alternative fuels and others are going overseas as the weak dollar makes U.S. exports more palatable to other countries.

At the same time, food banks and soup kitchens say that people struggling with mortgage woes, rising gas prices and layoffs are increasingly turning to them for help.

To cope, food banks are being forced to purchase more food, cut back on the amount they provide or even trade local produce with other food banks. United Food Bank in Mesa, Ariz., recently got volunteers to pick oranges, grapefruits and lemons, some of which were swapped for potatoes from food banks in Idaho.

You can read the rest of the article, here (sorry, the article is only available to WSJ subscribers).