Definitions and Services According to the United States
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 2004 Household Food Security
Report, nearly 650,000 Missourians experience food insecurity –
approximately a third of them also experience hunger. This means
that their access to enough food is limited by a lack of money
and other resources. A 1997 study by the Midwest Assistance
Program funded by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources,
Solid Waste Management Program
http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/swmp/index.html, found that food
accounted for 18.7% or over 1,033,000 tons of waste disposed in
Missouri landfills. http://www.dnr.mo.gov/pubs/pub2072.pdf A
study by the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project
reports that most low-income families must receive food
assistance from several sources, relying on Federal food
assistance programs as well as emergency food programs. Even
with Federal assistance and the work of charities and nonprofit
organizations, nearly 20 percent of the requests for emergency
food assi