Hunger should be rare in the United States, which has the capacity to feed not just itself but most of the world.

Economics, logistics, culture, politics and more all play roles in its persistence, but President Joe Biden is on the mark in trying to harness the nation’s capabilities in agriculture, nutritional science, and other areas to end it by 2030.

The timing was poor this week for the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health since President Richard Nixon vowed to end hunger in 1969.

As the conference convened Wednesday, food price inflation globally continued and Russia’s war in Ukraine threatened food supplies for Europe and Africa.

But Biden came armed with $8 billion in private-sector commitments to fight hunger, including from major producers and supermarket chains, $4 billion for philanthropies dedicated to distributing healthy food.

At least for now, though, some of the most ambitious proposals to mitigate hunger rely on political cooperation that does not exist. Biden wants to expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, restore the two-year pandemic-driven program to provide free meals to all school students, and restore the expanded child tax credit, also expired, that lifted millions of people out of poverty during the pandemic.

Deadlines are necessary to drive action, but realistically there is scant chance that the nation will eliminate hunger by 2030. But even the initiatives announced so far portend progress, and the goal is the right one for a nation with the resources to achieve it.

— Citizen’s Voice/ TNS