The Michigan Food Stamp Challenge is over, but our work for justice for the poor continues.

Now that you’ve seen what it is to live on $21 per week, will you help the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice work year-round by making a pledge of 21 dollars per month?

Every month ICPJ works to bring people together to work for a more peaceful and just world, whether that’s by organizing the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge, sponsoring the Washtenaw County CROP Walk, or by training people to lead discussions about overcoming racism, we are working to make the world a better place.

Your pledge makes that work possible.

Please pledge today.

As I write this, it’s 5 hours and 25 minutes until the end of Food Stamp Challenge.

What have you learned?

• What have you learned in your personal experience taking the Challenge?
• What surprised you?
• What did you expect?
• How was your experience different than that of someone who really depends of food stamps?

One of the more perverse parts of the farm bill is a subsidy system that actually PROMOTES poverty and poor nutrition.

Here’s how it works.

The government offers subsidies to farmers. Most of these subsidies to to large farmers, and most of them go to just a few crops.

Corn is a major one.

So you’ve got a corn subsidy that mainly benefits major agribusiness companies. What does that do to farmers in the US, in the rest of the world, and to consumers.

Well, the first thing that a subsidy does is that it artificially lowers the price and increases supply. The mega-companies that benefit from the subsidy produce more and sell it for less because of the money that the government kicks in.

So what does that mean for a small U.S. farm family that doesn’t pocket as much subsidy? Their corn doesn’t sell for as much. Subsidies hurt the small US farmer.

And it’s even worse for farmers int the rest of the world. Thanks to NAFTA, a small maize (corn) farmer in Mexico is now directly competing with the subsidized US corn. While people in his village used to buy their corn locally, now they’ll buy the cheaper US corn.

Now the farmer is out of business.

What is he to do? He could try growing something else to support himself, but if it’s going to make enough money it is probably illegal. He could head to a sweatshop. Or he could head to the US (with or without his papers) to look for work–maybe as a farmhand.

Subsidies are bad for farmers in the rest of the world.

Oh, and now that there’s so much corn on the market, what can we do with it all?  Well, we can make cheap high fructose corn syrup and wonder why obesity rates are increasing.

Wholescale reform of the farm bill really is a justice issue for food stamp recipients, for small and medium-sized farmers in the US, for farmers around the world, and for our super-sized nation.

We’re making good progress on the food stamp issue. We’ve got a long way to go on the subsidy issue.

It’s Friday AM of the week long Food Stamp Challenge and I’m starting to feel a little ashamed. The meals I’ve had so far this week really aren’t substantially different than the ones I normally have, though the portions seem much smaller than usual. I’ve come to the table with hunger pains and my temper has been a bit closer to the surface than usual. I’ve read some of the posts on the Neo-Con blabber-blogs (actually I’ve read the same post just cut and pasted to several locations. Geesh, don’t those folks even come up with their own spin?) The gist of the neo-con critique of the Food Stamp Challenge seems to be that it’s not effective, that nothing is actually being changed by this activity. And to some degree, I think I might agree with that assessment.

I’m feeling a bit like a bourgeois tourist, temporarily visiting the place where others live daily. So what am I going to do about it? The easiest thing would be to continue the Challenge, to adopt it as a continuing practice. We could then calculate the amount we used to spend on food and donate the difference to any of the food relief organizations. But as someone else on this board noted, charity is not going to resolve the problem of hunger much less that of poverty.

The more difficult and ongoing task is to work for justice.

On the ICPJ Michigan Food Stamp Challenge Blog, Jeanne recently wrote “I would like to ask the people choosing to participate to work for justice.”

She’s right. Taking the Challenge is only a first step. It’s a way to open our hearts and to realize the challenges that peole living in poverty face.

But the follow up requires action.

This month the Senate is debating the Farm Bill, which sets the rules for Food Stamps and many other food-related programs. It’s important that you contact your Senator and tell them to support full funding for the Food Stamp program.

The Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism has an online tool to help you do just that. Write your Senator now.

The Farm Bill covers many other areas related to hunger in the United States and around the world. Bread for the World has an excellent briefing paper on their goals for Farm Bill reform (word document).

The Farm Bill addresses many of the other issues that have come up on this blog. For example, “Why is unhealthy food so cheap (and healthy food so expensive)?” The Farm Bill subsidies make fillers like high-fructose corn syrup artificially cheap (and provide subsidies for agribusiness mega-corporations).

The farm bill is really the food bill, and reforming it is a justice issue for America’s low-income families, for America’s farmers, and for farmers around the world.

You can take action on these other aspects of the farm bill online at Bread for the World.

Please, head Jeanne’s call and work for justice.

Your efforts are getting attention and raising awareness about this issue!  Today we had an excellent article in the Ann Arbor News and the Detroit News. We’ve been on Michigan Radio, WCBN Radio, and on Friday at noon we’ll be on the Lynn Rivers’ Show on WEMU. We’ve also had press inquiries or interviews from Channel 5 in Saginaw, WWJ News Radio in Detroit, the Jackson Citizen-Patriot, and the Manchester Enterprise. Thank you for making all this happen!

With reference to the Food Stamp Challenge, the Washtenaw County MSU Extension Family Nutrition Program works with low-income county residents on a daily basis to assist them in building knowledge and skills with nutrition and food preparation. The challenge of course, is to teach them to maintain a healthy diet on a very restricted budget. As many are about to discover this is no easy task.

We would like to offer our support for this effort including assistance with educational materials that will help those participating to understand the challenge low-income residents face each day as they make choices for themselves and their families.

For assistance please contact:

Joan Miller, Extension Educator

Washtenaw County MSU Extension Food, Nutrition, and Health and Family Nutrition Program

705 N. Zeeb Road

Ann Arbor, MI 48103

734-222-3956

mill1108@msu.edu

Forty Area Residents to Live on $21 Worth of Food for One Week

For Immediate Release
August 16, 2007
Contact: Chuck Warpehoski, chuck@icpj.net
w: 734-663-1870 c: 734-972-8304      

(Ann Arbor, MI.) Over forty Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti residents have pledge to live on only $3 worth of food a day — the average Food Stamp Program benefit level — from September 4 to 10. These families are taking part in the ICPJ Michigan Food Stamp Challenge to raise awareness of how difficult it is to purchase a healthy and nutritious diet on a food stamp budget.

“This week living on an average food stamp budget won’t come close to recreating the worry and anxiety that millions of low-income people feel every day when they’re not sure where their next meal is coming from, but we do hope to shine a light on the importance of the program and the need for increased benefits,” said Chuck Warpehoski, Director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, the organization organizing the Challenge.

Established in 1939, the Food Stamp Program helps more than 26 million low-income people each month. Eligibility is based on income and assets depending on household size. Eligibility in the Food Stamp Program also includes work requirements, with all non-elderly adults required to be employed or to register for employment.  Many are also required to participate in work training and job search programs.

The Farm Bill, which includes funding for the Food Stamp Program, is due to be reauthorized in Congress this year.

“President Bush has called for cuts to food stamps, citing how the war in Iraq has put pressure on budget. Anyone who is considering cutting food stamps to pay for the war in Iraq should take the Food Stamp Challenge first, then let’s talk,” said Chuck Warpehoski.

“We believe we have a moral responsibility to end hunger in America,” Joan Doughty, Executive Director of Community Action Network and a Food Stamp Challenge participant, said. “The Food Stamp Program plays a vital role in providing nutrition assistance to low-income families, but the current benefit level makes it very difficult for many recipients to make ends meet.”

A blog that participants in the ICPJ Michigan Food Stamp Challenge can use to describe their experiences while living on the food stamp diet has been created at http://blog.MichiganFoodStampChallenge.org

The Ann Arbor News ran an interview today, Sunday, August 26, about the Challenge.

If you’re coming here after reading the interview, make sure you sign up for the challenge.

I’m grateful that the News helped explain why this is an issue for the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice. Not only is there talk of cutting food stamp funding, but the funding cuts would be to help cover the cost of the war in Iraq.

That’s not peace and it’s not justice.

The ICPJ Michigan Food Stamp Challenge is a way for people of faith and people of conscious we have to open our eyes and open our hearts to the reality of poverty in America, and then to open our mouths to call for justice.

The power of the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge is the personal experiences of people taking the Challenge. By blogging about the Challenge, you help share that personal experience with others.

There are two ways you can blog about the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge:

First, you can blog about the challenge on your own personal blog. If you already write a blog, please post about your experience on that blog. If you don’t have a blog, you can set one up for free from Wordpress  or Blogger.

Or, you can contribute to the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge blog. It’s a quick and easy three-step process.

Step 1: Register for the blog by visiting http://www.michiganfoodstampchallenge.org/wp-register.php. Just choose a username and enter your email and you’re up and running.

Step 2: Write your blog posts. This is the fun part. Login to the blog at: http://www.michiganfoodstampchallenge.org/wp-login.php and click on “write a post.” Then write about your food stamp grocery list, how you handle temptations at work, what it’s like cooking on a food stamp budget, or whatever. When you’re done writing your post, click “save.”

Step 3: Tell me when your post is ready to go on the site. For security reasons, we moderate all the posts that go on the site to make sure they’re not spam. So, when you’re ready for your post to be published, email me at chuck@icpj.net and I’ll add your post to the site.

It’s as easy as that!

If you have any questions, please do drop me an email at chuck@icpj.net nor call 734-663-1870.

Thank you!
-Chuck