When the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would stop producing its Household Food Security report after Oct. 22, I felt disbelief and immediate concern as a researcher and scholar of food security in Hampton Roads. For nearly three decades, this annual report has been the nation’s moral compass on hunger, revealing who is struggling to eat, where gaps persist, and how policy shifts ripple through real lives. Local governments do not readily have the capacity to measure household food security. Ending it now means flying blind at a time when food insecurity is rising again.
In 2023, the report showed that 47.4 million Americans — including 13.8 million children — have low and very low food security. That’s 1 in 7 households. Behind every data point is a family deciding between groceries, rent and medication. Without federal measurement, those families disappear — and when problems become invisible, they too often become ignorable. You can’t change what you don’t measure.
Here in Virginia, my own work assessing all of Virginia’s comprehensive plans shows why data still matters. The Hampton Roads region demonstrates widespread acknowledgement of food systems, but uneven operationalization of food access and security.
Across Hampton Roads:
Most jurisdictions only frame food through agricultural protection and local production for economic and land-use purposes, i.e., farmland preservation, zoning for agriculture and farmer’s markets.
Newport News, Norfolk and Suffolk reference community gardens, urban agriculture pilots and local food cooperatives, while Portsmouth identifies partnerships with food banks, and Chesapeake includes food retail access within its “community service facilities” mapping.
Transportation (a major barrier to food security) and access to food are not connected in any comprehensive plan; Hampton notes connectivity between neighborhoods and retail hubs, which is relevant for food access.
Only three plans link food access directly to health or food security. Norfolk’s plan connects areas of low or very low food security to public health initiatives. Newport News references “healthy community design” with food availability. James City County includes “nutrition and wellness” under community well-being objectives.
Only one local plan includes measurable food-security goals. Food is siloed under agriculture and rarely linked to health, climate or equity in community planning.
Three jurisdictions include food in resilience and emergency planning, tying food systems to disaster preparedness, i.e., stockpiling, local supply chains.
This patchwork mirrors a larger national problem: We lack consistency and public accountability for food access, proximity and affordability. Without the USDA report, state and local leaders lose the benchmark that shows whether investments — such as the Virginia Food Access Investment Fund or local mini-grant programs — are working. Researchers lose the trendlines that connect policy to impact. And families lose the visibility that compels action.
Data are not just numbers; they are infrastructure for democracy. They tell us who benefits, who is left out, and where to focus our collective energy. The absence of data does not erase hunger; it only erases our ability to respond through the allocation of resources.
In Hampton Roads, we must take food security seriously as an upstream regional planning issue, not a charitable afterthought. Our regional foodbanks and nonprofit food pantries will not be able to handle the need without data. I am urging each city and county to include a “Right to Food” clause in their comprehensive plans — defining access to affordable, nutritious, culturally relevant food as a basic human need, alongside housing and transportation. Incorporate quantifiable food access indicators and build a shared Food Security Dashboard through the regional planning district to track real progress, e.g., how many households live within 15 minutes of a full-service grocer, how SNAP participation changes, how flooding disrupts food routes, etc.
Even still, our local data can’t replace the national benchmark that has guided decades of policy. When the USDA stops reporting, Virginia’s communities will still face hunger; we’ll just have less proof of its scale and fewer tools to fight it. Hiding hunger won’t solve it. Seeing it clearly, understanding it more completely, and acting together locally is how we build a nation where every neighbor can thrive through food and nutrition.
Leslie Hoglund, Ph.D., M.Ed., MCHES, is an associate professor in the Joint School of Public Health at Norfolk State University.
