More Oregonians can’t afford food compared to just three years ago, according to a new analysis from Oregon State University’s Policy Analysis Lab.
About 530,000 Oregonians experienced some form of food insecurity, meaning they couldn’t afford groceries or outright skipped meals at some point during the years of 2021 through 2023. That represents about 12% of people living in the state, up from 9.2% three years earlier.
An undated image of produce, courtesy of the Oregon Food Bank. Policy advocates at the Oregon Food Bank said in 2023 the food bank's network saw a 14% increase in visits from the previous year.
Lindsay Trapnell / Oregon Food Bank
The report highlights a far more dramatic rise in food insecurity among people living in Oregon’s rural communities. In some rural areas, food insecurity rates doubled from 10% to 20.7%.
Nationally, 13.5% of households were food insecure at least sometime during 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The report’s authors say some reasons for the sharp increase could be that rural communities may have been more significantly harmed by work layoffs during and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, or may have had less access to public and private resources, such as food pantries or help with enrolling in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.
“Furthermore, during this period rural counties in Oregon faced additional crises such as wildfires that displaced many residents,” wrote the analysis authors, Julian McElhaney and Mark Edwards of OSU. They noted ongoing research would explore that possibility.”
Related: Federal report finds food insecurity got worse in Oregon since the pandemic
Sarah Weber-Ogden, co-executive director for Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, said she attributes the sharp increase to the rising cost of living, but also to the end of pandemic-era assistance programs like universal-free school meals or extra money for all SNAP-qualifying households.
“We’re really seeing that the end of those benefits are creating this benefit cliff that folks are falling off of,” Weber-Ogden said. “We have not seen the economic recovery in those communities that would allow them to stabilize with those benefits ending.”
The OSU report comes as some Republican Congressional lawmakers are pushing to cut funding to SNAP in drafts of the upcoming farm bill. That bill is renewed every five years and includes funding for crop insurance, agricultural conservation programs and rural development projects. A large chunk of the bill goes to fund food assistance programs like food stamps.
As of the latest count in September, there were 441,171 households, made up of 728,459 Oregonians, who received $138 million worth of SNAP food benefits, according to an Oregon Department of Human Services spokesperson.
In Oregon, cuts to the farm bill could mean a loss of $500 million in benefits over the next decade, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“Those cuts would compound year over year. So the way that that would eventually work out over the course of the next 10 years would just be increasingly and exponentially impactful for Oregonians,” Weber-Ogden said. “They would see less and less, while the cost of living continues to go higher and higher.”
Related: Food insecurity is on the rise in Oregon after downward trend before the pandemic
Weber-Ogden said Oregon’s way of life is at stake in the legislation. “Are we going to protect our rural communities and allow and empower them to continue to live the rural lifestyle in Oregon that is such a huge part of our value system and our identities?” she said. “Or are we going to let them slip through the cracks?”
The farm bill was set to expire last fall, but lawmakers extended it for another year. Congress is unlikely to pass a new farm bill before the end of this year, according to Congressional staff serving the House Committee on Agriculture. Instead, it’s more likely lawmakers will vote on an extension and debate the bill in next year’s session, after Republicans who won seats in November’s election join Congress.