A Place at the Table Page #2

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and often in the same family

and the same person

is because they're both signs

of having insufficient funds

to be able to command

food that you need to stay healthy.

Mostly, I really shop for...

I look around

and see what's the cheapest.

You have... Fruit are very high.

And you got chips that's 35 a bag.

So I say, "Okay,

I'm not gonna get the fruit.

"I'm gonna get some chips."

But if the fruit on sale,

I'll leave the chips and get the fruit.

She's overweight for her age.

She's very overweight for her age.

So I have to sort of watch,

and that bothers me.

Tremon, do you want blue juice

or cranberry juice?

Blue juice.

If you look at what has happened

to the relative price

of fresh fruits and vegetables,

it's gone up by 40% since 1980

when the obesity epidemic first began.

In contrast, the relative price

of processed foods

has gone down by about 40%.

So if you have only a limited amount

of money to spend,

you're going to spend it

on the cheapest calories you can get.

And that's going

to be processed foods.

This has to do

with our farm policy

and what we subsidize

and what we don't.

# Look out, Ma, look out, Pa #

# Look at that horizon #

# Something's out there,

kicking up dust #

# Storm is coming fast #

The subsidy system that we now have

actually started back in the 1930s

during the Great Depression.

Farmers were the first to be hit hard

when the economy went bad.

There was a lot of pressure to put

some sort of

government assistance forward

to help them get a decent price

at harvest time for their crops.

The programs

in the Great Depression,

of course,

were emergency programs.

The idea was, if we could,

on a temporary basis,

help support

the prices of farm products,

that we'd get

through this difficult period.

And then we would let

the market take over,

except we never let

the market take over.

# It's been a long time coming #

In the 1930s and '40s

and into the '50s,

and even a little bit beyond that,

I think you could make the case

that it really was family farmers

who were mostly benefiting

from these programs.

But as the agricultural sector

became more concentrated

in terms of ownership

of the land resources,

more and more

of these operations

came to resemble agribusinesses

and not family farming operations.

# It's been #

# A long time coming #

# It's been #

# A long time #

The U.S. Department

of Agriculture, USDA,

Is one of the most diverse

and complex agencies

in the entire federal government.

It does everything

from international food trade

to the Forest Service,

to food safety,

to animal protection,

to, of course, farming programs,

and food and nutrition programs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture

has increasingly become the domain

of support for mega-farms

and mega-farming corporations.

Most of that subsidy money,

about 70% of it,

has gone just

to 10% of those beneficiaries.

The biggest,

largest, best capitalized farms,

they're hauling

in this taxpayer money now.

And so there

is this weird paradox

where welfare

for the poor is scorned,

but corporate welfare,

as it's known,

is sort of heartily endorsed.

We subsidize

the basic ingredients in processed foods.

We do not subsidize fruits,

vegetables, and whole grains,

because the producers tend

to be small producers.

They don't have

the kind of political clout

that the big commodity producers

of corn and soybeans

and wheat

that gets processed do.

These subsidies

made products very cheap,

and therefore made it profitable

for the food industry

to invest in the infrastructure

for processing those products

into the packaged goods

that we see on every counter,

in every corner store,

in every vending machine,

that are really ubiquitous now

and all around us.

Slicin' onions, gets you...

so you know that.

Just try to be careful.

I'm Ree. I have four boys,

and I live in Jonestown, Mississippi.

I've been living

in Jonestown all my life.

I'm in the kitchen.

Look, that's funny to her.

Raw onion, grilled onion.

What I do for work is I cook.

I work the cash register,

I do the dishes.

Mainly, I just pitch in,

you know, and help.

We have stores in Jonestown.

We have about

three grocery stores,

but it's hard in getting

some of the things

like, when you want fruits,

there's no store sell fruits.

Maybe one store will have

a few bananas.

They have vegetables,

but it's in a can.

I love fresh vegetables and fruit.

It's very frustrating

they don't have it here.

There's this thing called a food desert.

So out in the county,

you have these mom and pop shops.

And they don't have

fruits and veggies.

There are several issues.

Agriculture's a big business.

So I get this big 18-wheeler,

and I'm delivering food.

I'll deliver it to Walmart,

and I'll deliver it to Kroger,

and these others chains,

but I can't afford to take

my 18-wheeler

and go through

these back roads.

They're off the beaten path.

So you just don't fit our model,

you know.

Maximum delivery, minimum cost.

And so we're consuming

what's available to us.

Chips and ice cream and cakes.

They have that here.

They have lots and lots

of stuff like that here.

And so,

that's why I go to Clarksdale

sometimes grocery shopping,

or Batesville,

about a 45-minute drive.

Those that doesn't

have transportation, it's hard.

All right, hon,

help Mommy cook.

Mommy cook.

I want to help you

to make spaghetti.

Okay. Here you go.

This one goes on the table.

The assistance programs

in the United States

are very hard to qualify for.

It's, like, either you're starving

or you don't get any help.

But what defines starving?

Like, if you don't eat for a day,

are you starving?

In their eyes, no.

But in your eyes

and the way you feel, of course.

Okay.

Good job.

Mom, can I do the next one?

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Put that in the water.

But do we gotta break it?

No. You don't gotta break it.

It goes in the water.

It was Aiden's turn to help, too.

Put that in there.

Okay, that was a bad idea.

I do get food stamps now,

but they last about three weeks

out of the month.

And for that last week,

I'm just going crazy.

Is it good?

Mm-hmm.

Put them in there.

- The ones that are cut.

- I'm making.

I lived on a food stamp diet for a week

along with Jo Ann Emerson

from Missouri.

We did so because we thought

that the food stamp benefit

was inadequate.

Most of my colleagues

had no idea

that the average food stamp benefit

was $3.00 a day.

I had my budget,

and I went to a supermarket.

It took me an awful long time

because you have

to add up every penny.

And it has to last you for a week.

And so I did it,

and I will tell you,

I was tired, I was cranky,

'cause I couldn't drink coffee,

'cause coffee was too expensive.

There are people who are living

on that food stamp allocation.

And you really can't.

For us, it was an exercise

that ended in a week.

For millions of other people

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