{"id":3220,"date":"2026-04-14T12:58:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/?p=3220"},"modified":"2026-04-14T12:58:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:58:46","slug":"dr-craig-gundersen-discusses-food-insecurity-snap-and-economics-on-agricurious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/2026\/04\/dr-craig-gundersen-discusses-food-insecurity-snap-and-economics-on-agricurious\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Craig Gundersen Discusses Food Insecurity, SNAP and Economics on AgriCurious"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr. Craig Gundersen<\/a>, a professor in the Department of Economics at Baylor University<\/a> who serves as the Snee Family Endowed Chair, has focused his entire career on identifying the causes and consequences of food insecurity and the evaluation of food assistance programs such as SNAP. He joined Dennis Baffour-Awuah<\/a> on episode four of season two of the AgriCurious podcast <\/a>to share his insights into how agricultural economics covers the full scope of the agricultural value chain, from farmers and ranchers producing food to the products that land in supermarkets and eventually on our tables, making it an important aspect of our daily lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dr.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Their lively discussion uncovered that poverty, although at the core of food insecurity, does not tell the entire story. This realization contributed to the development of Map the Meal Gap<\/a>, which has become the standard tool used to portray the geography of food insecurity in the United States. According to Craig, about 70% of poor people are food secure, while 10 to 15 percent of non-poor people are food insecure. The map was therefore developed using state-level data from the Current Population Survey and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, together with information from counties, zip codes, and census tracts to estimate food insecurity rates across all counties in the United States, revealing the enormous variation among counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Gundersen noted that the perception that everybody has the same probability of experiencing food insecurity is false. He explained that certain groups are at higher risk of food insecurity, including people with disabilities (especially those related to mental health), those suffering from loneliness or addiction, and individuals recently released from prison. He said, \u201cThese groups have a high risk of food insecurity, and we need to spend more time talking about these groups, and my hope is that this can be the future direction for research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food prices were also identified as a major determinant of food insecurity and that a vibrant agricultural supply chain makes a wide range of foods available to individuals, which in turn helps lower food prices. Aside from this, other drivers, such as strong economic growth, can help people move to high-growth states, giving them opportunities to reduce the probability of food insecurity. Strong safety nets, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also play an important role in supporting individuals and preserving dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Gundersen said a key issue to look at going forward in agriculture is figuring out how to improve productivity among farmers around the world. He stated that, \u201cOne of the keyways to do this is not putting government or other impediments in the way of farmers and ranchers in conducting the way they do things.\u201d He explained that when regulations or other barriers impede farmers’ success, it becomes more difficult for them to produce food efficiently, which would otherwise help lower food prices. He reiterated that focusing more attention on the most vulnerable groups in society when discussing food insecurity is an important direction for future work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the conversation with Dr. Gundersen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Craig Gundersen, a professor in the Department of Economics at Baylor University who serves as the Snee Family Endowed Chair, has focused his entire career on identifying the causes and consequences of food insecurity and the evaluation of food assistance programs such as SNAP. He joined Dennis Baffour-Awuah on episode four of season two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":3237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,15,60],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-3220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agproduction","category-community-development","category-scicomm","tag-baffour-awuah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}