PUTTING FOOD ON THE TABLE

California is known for its massive agricultural output, but those who fall into food insecurity in the state have increased dramatically during the pandemic.

What is food insecurity?

Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life. This can be a temporary situation for a household or can last a long time. Food insecurity is one way to measure how many people cannot afford food.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 42 million Americans may experience food insecurity in 2021, up from 35.2 million in 2019.

Agricultural abundance

In 2020, California's agricultural abundance included more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts were grown in California.

While the abundant growth of food continues, the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an unprecedented level of demand at California food banks, who have seen a 74% increase in total food distributed between 2019 and 2020. At the same time, the state's farmers and ranchers saw their short-term market decrease by 50%. The fresh produce industry supply chain was especially hard hit because of the perishability of the products that must be harvested, shipped and consumed in a short period of time. California's Farm to Family program is a partnership between the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Association of Food Banks to facilitate food donations from farmers and ranchers by supporting food production, processing and distribution of the food supply chain.

Major production

California's cash receipts in 2020 exceeded those of these 10 states combined.