The insights from this database can be very dramatic. Take Maryland. In 2010, that state had the nation’s highest median income—more than $70,000, compared to a national average of $49,000. Yet despite the state’s overall prosperity, Map the Meal Gap revealed that the same year, more than 700,000 Maryland residents were food insecure and together they missed more than 125 million meals.1 Sometimes elected officials aren’t aware of the extent of food insecurity among their constituents—and sometimes they are not inclined to want to become aware of it. However, a tool like Map the Meal Gap is the antidote for bureaucratic head-in-the-sand behavior. I like the transparency of this project, and the fact that anyone can use the online tool, from an elementary school student writing a report to economists in the Congressional Budget Office.
I have been looking more closely at poverty and food insecurity among US farmworkers lately, particularly in light of calls for immigration reform. In 2010 our foundation purchased land in Arizona to use for research purposes, and that state is grappling with serious fallout from the political rhetoric surrounding immigration. In many cases, farmers are finding it more and more difficult to hire sufficient labor to harvest their crops. That is true not only in Arizona but also in other states. Americans often do not want these jobs, yet we turn away hardworking farm laborers trying to support their families in a way that strengthens US agriculture and contributes to the overall food security and food safety of our country.
I don’t have the answers for resolving the immigration debate, particularly in our volatile political climate, but there is another difficult irony today in US agricultural communities dependent on migrant labor. In California, which leads the nation in agricultural production, two counties that fall into the top five for highest agricultural sales are also among the top 10 percent of counties with the highest food-insecurity rates: Merced and Fresno.2 Farming in California’s Central Valley, where Merced and Fresno are located, is dramatically different from the high-volume corn, soybean, and wheat farming I do in Illinois. In my state, only a few workers with modern equipment are needed to farm hundreds of acres, but farming California’s many high-value specialty crops is much more labor intensive. Vegetables, nuts, and fruits must often be hand harvested, which means the same amount of farmland as what I have in Illinois would require hundreds of seasonal workers. As Eva’s film pointed out, these workers are essential to the US farm economy, yet their lives are difficult, and their children suffer. They move from harvest to harvest and may be in and out of schools frequently. Not surprisingly, many never finish high school. And even though these workers pick and handle hundreds of pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables each day, they cannot afford to buy that same food, and studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of farmworkers eat diets high in fat and low in fruits and vegetables.3
A NEW TOUCH POINT IN TALKING ABOUT HUNGER
Map the Meal Gap is the kind of information tool that helps everyone who cares about situations such as hunger get a more accurate and useful picture of what hunger looks like in these communities. Its power lies in its simplicity. But some very smart statistical and computational brains are behind making the data so accessible and simple.
As I mentioned, this tool was created for Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity. In 2009 several food banks in the Feeding America network had tried to work together to construct a portrait of hunger in their communities. On one hand, these folks had access to the best, boots-on-the-ground information—they were working every day in the communities where the need was greatest. Yet they struggled with trying to match data sets that often were incomplete, were outdated, or did not easily correlate between regions. Some were using poverty as a proxy for food insecurity, but that is not always an accurate measuring stick. For one thing, the price of an average meal in some parts of the country can be twice what it is in other areas, creating a much more dire situation for those living in more expensive regions. More than half of all food-insecure people live in households with incomes above the poverty level, notes Elaine Waxman, vice president of research and nutrition at Feeding America, and that can mean they do not qualify for federal nutrition programs. They rely instead on charitable emergency food programs to meet their needs. Also, not everyone below the poverty level is food insecure. Some otherwise low-income individuals have more access to other social networks to obtain food, such as connections to farms or family.
Feeding America put together an advisory group and contacted economist Craig Gundersen, who is considered one of the foremost experts on food security in the United States. Gundersen, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, has a research agenda that concentrates on the causes and consequences of food insecurity in the United States and on the evaluation of food assistance programs. He had spent considerable time working with the available statistics and creating equations that brought in relevant variables. “Food banks have been asking for more localized information,” says Dr. Gundersen. He adds that there were many surprises for groups working in hunger relief, including areas where food insecurity was as much as three times higher than local organizations had figured, particularly in the volatile period after the recession hit in 2008.
“The immediate payoff was its ability to fuel advocacy work,” says Elaine Waxman. “But it has become a touch point for anyone speaking to the topic of hunger and nutrition. Food banks became creative in terms of plotting the locations for their activities, making sure their backpack programs [programs where children bring home food in their backpacks after school or during the summer], for example, were located in the areas of highest need. Map the Meal Gap helps you spot where the holes are.” And the data begin to suggest other uses in terms of identifying populations for different kinds of studies, such as a pilot program Feeding America is working on examining the links between food insecurity and diabetes.
At the broadest level, Map the Meal Gap has reengineered the way Feeding America approaches outcomes, explains Maura Daly, its chief communication and development officer. “We’ve measured service in the past as the number of people fed, but it turns out that is not a very accurate way of doing it. Now we can measure in terms of the meals delivered to a community, where we know the extent of food insecurity down to the county level. It’s becoming a backbone for local hunger relief organizations to measure their own success.”
Thanks to MMG, we know that there are several counties in Texas where 50 percent of the children are at risk of hunger. Eva Longoria feels a special desire to support these families. “I think the keys to these households are the women,” she says. “They control the choices, but one in four Latina women in the US is below the poverty line.” In conjunction with the Eva Longoria Foundation and the nonprofit Accion USA, we are helping to fund a microcredit program to lend capital to low-income Latina women. We will use Map the Meal Gap data to target communities facing the most food insecurity. Accion has helped all kinds of Texas entrepreneurs secure microloans for businesses ranging from pie shops, to personal care services, to florist shops. The women who qualify for our fund will apply for loans between $500 and $25,000, and they will receive training in finance and help in how to grow a business. We’re going to work closely with them, and analyze the program every six months to make sure it’s on track. And we’re going to analyze how the participants’ level of food security changes after they become involved.
As a farmer, I don’t spend a lot of time on the kind of abstract equations and correlations that are Dr. Gundersen’s life’s work. But I have a deep appreciation for the value of good information, be it weather predictions or more accurate demographic data on the true nature and extent of hunger in a community. The idea that questions once relegated to ballpark guesses can now be answered in a few keystrokes on a website is not just innovative, it is inspiring new ideas and, we hope, better approaches.
Our food’s journey from the field to the table can b
e complicated. Here Eva Longoria learned about large-scale grain production by operating a combine to harvest corn on our Illinois farm. Using Map the Meal Gap data, we are partnering with Eva’s foundation to fight hunger in the US. Photo: Howard W. Buffett
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I. Visit www.40Chances.com/MMG to access Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap tool.
Story 38
The Power of a Piece of Paper
José Martín lives in a small community in the municipality of Esquipulas, province of Matagalpa, Nicaragua. José, thirty-six, is the father of three young children. He has worked as a farmer his whole life. He started on his parents’ farm, where they taught him to work the land to get ahead, but he dreamed of having his own property instead of spending money renting land to grow his crops.
Many subsistence farming families in the area share this dream, but for a long time, it was almost impossible for them to achieve it. To obtain legal title to land in Nicaragua, the government requires a landowner to hire an attorney and provide evidence that the land belongs to the farmer, either through the sale documents or by affidavits from neighbors that the family has worked the land for many years. The normal fees to follow this process and pay attorneys can top the equivalent of $2,000.
In 2004, when José made a good profit from growing beans, he was able to buy one manzana (1.7 acres) of land from a neighbor. He obtained a document for the land, a sales-purchase agreement written by a lawyer, but it was not entered in the public registry. He discovered that this lack of paperwork meant even though he might no longer be paying rent, the current owner had the right to reclaim the land. José says, “I knew that the document that I had for my land was not worth much, and I was very afraid of this . . . but it was worse to have nothing. For a long time, I didn’t try to find out what to do; first of all, because I didn’t know where to go, and the other thing was the cost. They [at the municipality] told me that it was very expensive.”
These are the dilemmas that farmers trying to obtain title to the land they work face around the world. So many, like José, are hardworking, determined people who nonetheless find the bureaucracy and the expense of navigating complicated and sometimes corrupt systems to be overwhelming. The good news is that some organizations are finding ways to help these smallholders navigate the process and feel the pride and security of owning their land.
We have been working with Catholic Relief Services in Central America on an initiative called Agriculture for Nutrition. A4N focuses on supporting smallholder farmers to develop business skills, a market focus, and financial savvy so they can enter and thrive in a larger economy. The program teaches sustainable agricultural techniques, for example, but it also educates farmers about saving and lending and investing in infrastructure assets.
A4N is implemented locally by the Diocesan Caritas of Matagalpa. In 2009, A4N began expanding its work in José Martín’s area and held training sessions to improve farmers’ general knowledge about farming techniques. Based on their recommendations, José expanded his crops to include different vegetables he could sell. But when it came to investing in the soil with fruit trees to protect it or with other long-term improvements, he was hesitant. He knew that at any moment he could lose the property. “Imagine, I did not even put a fence around it,” he says. To invest in the soil with cover crops or irrigation would just increase the chance that the owner would want the land back.
But in May 2010, A4N conducted a detailed assessment. After it determined that more than 1,500 of the 2,500 participants in A4N in Nicaragua lacked legal title to their farmland, it moved to help. The project initiated a large land legalization process for José Martín and over 1,376 other participating farmers. The organization worked with local municipalities to reduce the fees, and it helped the farmers complete the requirements. By September 2011, Señor Martín had become the official owner of his farm.
Increasingly, Nicaraguan farmers will be able to invest in their land as owners, bringing greater stability to their families and future generations. Photo: Howard G. Buffett
The property is now registered. Although it is only a small area, José Martín says it is sufficient. Now he can improve the land with trees, better water systems, and cover crops, and take maximum advantage of support from A4N and other projects. José told CRS that being part of A4N has benefited many aspects of his life. “I have even learned to improve my relations with my family and to understand and value what my duties and rights are. A4N has helped us in many farming-related ways, but it is the titling of our property that has made a great difference. . . . At the beginning, I never expected it because it was something that no one had been able to resolve for us, not even the central or municipal governments.”
CRS sent me a report in which one of its staffers detailed José’s story, but I have seen for myself the light in the eyes of farmers holding the titles to their land. In the fall of 2011 I visited the Nicaraguan village of Guasuyuca. I went to help inaugurate a newly built maize and bean storage processing center—an extremely valuable asset for this community of farmers. Shortly after we arrived, I saw a new wooden outhouse building nearby and stepped inside to use the facilities. A local man who didn’t realize I was inside started hammering nails into a piece of trim on the side of the not-quite-finished latrine. I yelled, “Hey, you could have just knocked!” When I came out, we all had a good laugh.
Throughout my visit, I could feel a lot of energy and optimism in this community, but by far the most fun was meeting with small groups of farmers, all dressed in their Sunday finest. One group came holding their land titles, and they were so proud to show them to me. A tall, thin farmer showed me his papers and talked about how he had a lot of children and that the land title meant so much to his family. His eyes watered, and he became so emotional that finally the local CRS staff comforted him, and the interpreter stopped translating. The farmer was convinced that God had intervened and delivered a miracle. A CRS staffer later explained to me that originally about 30 percent of the farmers thought they had legal title, but the A4N team discovered that less than 10 percent actually did. These people had been frightened at the beginning of the process, so the A4N’s accomplishment in resolving the titles was a huge relief. Now their investments in the land and in learning to improve it would benefit them and their families permanently.
One of my most gratifying moments was when a small group of farmers in Nicaragua showed me their land title documents. Photo: Howard G. Buffett
In another village, CRS let me hand land title documents to farmers. This was an unbelievably powerful experience. I could see the excitement and pride on their faces. I don’t think I imagined it when all the men and women I gave documents to that day walked away a little taller.
LAND RIGHTS CAN IMPROVE OUTPUT, INCOME, EVEN GRADUATION RATES
In many other regions in the world, the mood is not so happy. According to the NGO Landesa, which has been working on land reform since 1981, 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas where land is a fundamental asset and a primary source of income, security, opportunity, and status. Yet more than half these families lack either access to land or a secure stake in the land they have often farmed for generations.
Former law school professor Roy Prosterman started Landesa, originally called the Rural Development Institute (RDI), in 1981. Today the organization has worked in fifty countries. Landesa has compiled data showing that land rights are a significant advantage for subsistence farmers. In regions around the world that Landesa has surveyed, annual family income increases by 150 percent when farmers secure land rights, and agricultural production typically increases by 60 percent. Investments in property improvements double, as do high school graduation rates.1
Land tenure for farmers around the world is a critical issue, yet the details and peculiarities of politics, local laws, tribal customs, and farm management practices mean that it has to be addressed one country at a time. Dr. Gaye Burpee, who is the senior advisor for agriculture
and climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean for Catholic Relief Services, explains: “Central America has different laws for obtaining land titles in each country. Because of past conflicts over landownership, trying to do in Guatemala exactly what CRS did in Nicaragua, for example, would have put families at risk and may have resulted in violence.”
Still, memories of this A4N project in Nicaragua inspire me to keep working on land tenure issues and looking for creative new approaches geared to local realities. What an honor and privilege it was to hand a legal title document to a hardworking farmer who now is certain that he is farming land that he owns and can pass down to his children.
Story 39
Farmer of the Future
By Howard W. Buffett
Big steel-sided field sheds are common on farms in the US heartland. Most, like the two we have on the property I farm in Nebraska, are just massive garages. They’re drafty, with high ceilings and walls lined with tools, chains, and boxes of parts and machine oil. Usually a tractor and other pieces of farm equipment that need servicing or shelter are parked in the middle of a concrete or gravel floor. The “décor,” if it can be called that, includes old seed bags and maybe a calendar from a farm supply store. Unless it’s windy, it can seem colder inside a farm shed in winter than outside.
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