An Oklahoma nonprofit advocacy group working to end hunger is calling upon elected leaders and the United States Department of Agriculture to reverse a decision to cancel an annual report that measures food insecurity across the country.
Chris Bernard, president and chief executive officer of Hunger Free Oklahoma, said he was stunned when the USDA recently annouced plans to terminate the annual Household Food Security Report. According to a Sept. 20 USDA news release, the reports are being halted because they are “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,” and “do nothing more than fear monger.”
But, Hunger Free Oklahoma said cancellation of the reports undermines decades of progress in understanding and addressing hunger in communities, sending a “dangerous message” that tracking and battling hunger is no longer a priority for the United States government.
In an interview, Bernard said it is critical that the report is being terminated as the federal government plans changes to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that assist individuals and families in need. He pushed back on the USDA’s assertion that the reports have been redundant and politicized.
“Really, the timing is particularly troubling — we just had the most historic and sweeping changes to SNAP ever in the U.S., and now, the government’s not going to measure what the impact of that was,” the nonprofit leader said. “There’s this report that would have told us what impact that had in coming years, and now, there’s nothing.”
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Chris Bernard, Hunger Free Oklahoma president and chief executive officer, center, is shown in a photo promoting the Tulsa Kitchens United program.
Bernard said he and leaders of eight other nonprofits that serve individuals and families across the state recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to discuss changes to SNAP, that are included in the measure called the “one big beautiful bill” that was approved by Congress, and later signed into law by President Donald Trump in July. Formerly known as “food stamps,” SNAP is a federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget.
“We were talking to our delegation about what it looks like on the ground and when you’re having those conversations, you have this report so you can talk about solutions,” Bernard said.
“Once you take something like this away, there’s no longer an agreed-upon metric.”
Knowledge is power
Leaders with the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma said their organizations have also depended on reliable data to better help the communities they serve.
Stacy Dykstra, chief executive officer of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, said the annual report has been a “valuable resource,” helping the food bank track trends, while also shining a light on the experiences of households and children and helping her organization understanding how programs and support can influence families’ stability and self-sufficiency.
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Chris Bernard, Hunger Free Oklahoma president and chief executive officer, third from left, is shown during a visit with U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, in Washington, D.C.
“As the USDA’s report sunsets, there is a risk of losing consistent national benchmarks that have helped guide solutions,” she said in a statement. “We are committed to working alongside the Feeding America network to ensure we continue building on that foundation.”
Jeff Marlow, president and chief executive officer of the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, said his organization’s work depends on high-quality, actionable data.
“While no single report, including the USDA’s, will capture the full picture, pursuing innovative methods to measure food access is essential,” Marlow said.
Bernard said the report is widely considered the “gold standard” when it comes to compiling vital data on hunger and food insecurity, which remains a daily reality for millions of Americans.
He said the food insecurity measurement was a response to the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush Sr. Hunger Free Oklahoma said the data included in the annual reports has included a wide range of information, from local food bank operations to national policy decisions and also helped identify vulnerable populations, track the impact of economic shifts and guide the allocation of resources through programs like SNAP, WIC and school meals.
Bernard said the most recent report, released in 2024, showed a nearly 4% increase in food-insecure households between 2021 and 2023.
“The USDA has multiple professional researchers and economists who wrote this report ― it’s quite the effort,” he said.
Hunger Free Oklahoma is among the nonprofits that are concerned about the cancellation of the USDA’s cancellation annual Household Food Security report that measures food insecurity across the U.S.
Taking action
Bernard said there are several steps that Oklahomans may take regarding the planned cancellation of the Household Food Security Report. He urged Oklahomans to call members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to ask them not to terminate the annual report.
“Frankly, Congress can order them to do it and there’s a farm bill debate coming up where they can codifty that,” he said.
Bernard said the question that rises to the surface in the food insecurity community is how to step up to measure food insecurity. Having said that, he thinks the data should be compiled by the government.
“There are national groups and there’s local groups who I think will attempt to do it, but this should sit with government because it’s quite literally one of the rules of the USDA and by the government running the study, it is a neutral study by its nature and nonpartisan because of how it works.”
In her statement, Dykstra said the looming absence of the hunger security report will create opportunities for communities to find other ways to measure food security.
“This is a great opportunity for community members, government leaders and other partners across every sector to join us in finding new ways to understand and track progress toward improving food access,” she said. “Together we can come together to work toward an Oklahoma where no one goes hungry.”
Marlow said his agency is committed to working alongside partners to ensure that they meet the needs “of our neighbors with the greatest efficiency and impact.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How the end of food insecurity reports will affect Oklahomans
