Feeding America, a non-profit network of over 200 U.S. food banks, has reviewed the most recent federal data and found at least 400,000 Iowans didn’t have enough to food to eat in 2024 and Tami Nielsen, President and CEO of the Food Bank of Iowa, said given the traffic at Iowa food pantries, that number is far higher today.
“The numbers continue to go in the wrong direction,” Nielsen said during an interview with Radi Iowa.
Neilsen said hunger is a pervasive and chronic issue. “This report underscores what we know is happening here locally,” she said.
Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap” report found nearly one in eight Iowans faced food insecurity two years ago and nearly 18% of them were children. The Food of Bank of Iowa distributes food to 55 counties and operates 190 food pantries in schools. “When I started 10 years ago we had six and it was a pilot project,” Nielsen said. “One big change is that a lot of them do stay open during the summer…COVID I think was the game changer there, so a lot of our school pantries are open during the summmer just to take care of those kiddos and their families.”
Nielsen said due to rising food prices and the rising need, the Food Bank of Iowa spends as more money each month buying food than it did the entire year of 2019. “You add onto that the additional freight costs now, too,” Nielsen said, “and so even though we’re buying food from wholesalers, it still costs us more than it did a few years ago.”
The “Map the Meal Gap” report shows one in four children in Appanoose, Crawford, Montgomery and Wapello Counties faced hunger and in 14 other counties over 20% of children were food insecure in 2024. It also found 30% of black Iowans and 24% of Hispanics experienced hunger during 2024.
Hamilton County has 11.7 percent or 1,740 residents who were described as food insecure in the report released by Feeding America this week.