"About 33.8 million Americans didn't have adequate access to food, according to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's 13.5 million, or 10.2% of all U.S. households in 2021.
"Food inflation, as we've seen during the pandemic, has gone up, driven in large part by supply chain disruptions and shortages of food supply during the pandemic," according to Erika Thiem, chief supply chain officer at the nonprofit Feeding America.
It's worse for those with lower incomes. In 2021, the bottom 20% of households with the lowest income spent 30.6% of what they made on food, compared with just 7.6% for families in the highest income quintile."
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/16/why-food-deserts-arent-the-main-driver-of-hunger-in-the-us.html
"The world risks losing its battle to end hunger by the end of the decade, despite signs that the crisis has stopped worsening.
The lingering fallout from the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine means about 735 million people — or 9.2% of the population — were undernourished in 2022, according to United Nations agencies. While that’s slightly less than a year earlier, it was 122 million more than in 2019 and means the world remains far off a target to eradicate hunger by the end of this decade."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-12/world-is-losing-battle-to-wipe-out-hunger-by-end-of-decade
"As a result, the burden of feeding millions of starving people fell to the United States."
"the war effort by planting, fertilizing, harvesting and storing their own fruits and vegetables so that more food could be exported to our allies. Citizens were urged to utilize all idle land that was not already engaged in agricultural production—including school and company grounds, parks, backyards or any available vacant lots."
https://www.history.com/news/americas-patriotic-victory-gardens
"Many different types of vegetables were grown-such as tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets, and peas. Victory Gardens were responsible for bringing Swiss chard and kohlrabi onto the American dinner table because they were easy to grow.
At their peak there were more than 20,000,000 Victory Gardens planted across the United States.
By 1944 Victory Gardens were responsible for producing 40% of all vegetables grown in the United States. More than one million tons of vegetables were grown in Victory Gardens during the war.
People with no yards planted small Victory Gardens in window boxes and watered them through their windows. Some city dwellers who lived in tall apartment buildings planted rooftop gardens and the whole building pitched in and helped.
Many schools across the country planted Victory Gardens on their school grounds and used their produce in their school lunches.
The U.S. government printed recipe books describing how to prepare home grown vegetables to make nutritional and tasty meals. Agricultural companies gave tips on how to make seedlings flourish in different climates.
Excess food grown in Victory Gardens was canned and used during the winter months to help supplement the amount of food available.
Growing Victory Gardens gave Americans on the Home Front a feeling that they were doing something helpful to win the war (and they were)!"
http://enroll.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/victory-gardens.html