This article, by Zach Lewis, is part of a series highlighting members of the Office of Sustainability’s Experts Database. In a collaboration with instructor Hannah Monroe’s course, LSC 561: Writing Science for the Public, students interviewed campus sustainability experts and produced short feature stories.
Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the death of more than one million Americans, upending life as we knew it. The pandemic, and the federal response to it, also brought existing social inequities to the forefront of public conversation. Understanding the benefits and drawbacks of the federal response to one of the most pressing of these inequities, food access, is the focus of Melissa Bublitz, a professor of social innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Bublitz grew up surrounded by food — her parents involved her in cooking and gardening from an early age — but it took time for her academic specialty to coincide with this interest. Bublitz graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh with a degree in marketing. After receiving her MBA, Bublitz worked as a market researcher, which involved understanding various aspects of food safety. When Bublitz began her Ph.D. program in management science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, she chose a project centered on food safety because she was familiar with it — and it has defined her work ever since.
Bublitz’s expertise in analyzing both management systems and food networks made her the perfect person to begin to parse the changes that happened at the federal level during the pandemic.
“I see myself as a sustainability scholar for two reasons: I have … a steam of work that deals with food and food access,” she said, and she centers her work around “social entrepreneurship, innovation, and social change.”
Everyone working in the emergency food network — places like food banks and pantries that are immediate sources of food for those in need — knew prior to the pandemic that high-level change was necessary. But over the past few years, Bublitz said, “there was a realization about the systematic health disparities and the ways in which lack of access to affordable nutritious food was exacerbated.” The closing of schools meant many children lost the guarantee of breakfast or lunch for most of the year, and 20 million Americans were out of work. The stage was set for a hunger crisis not seen since the Great Depression.
But that didn’t happen. In fact, the Emergency Food Network saw a decrease in visits during the pandemic. The federal government had stepped in, doubling spending on food aid and working with the Emergency Food Network to create programs that kept the nation’s most at-risk populations fed. For example, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were increased by $200 per household per month. Senior citizens, who typically don’t have access to full SNAP benefits, became eligible for a full share. In response to school closures, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT), a temporary program that provided parents with additional grocery funds to be used during the school year. The USDA also issued SNAP eligibility waivers to broaden access to benefits, as well as allowing online shopping for the first time.
Bublitz found that another key player in the process of avoiding a food crisis could be found closer to home: the Hunger Task Force (HTF), Wisconsin’s largest emergency food provider. At the beginning of the pandemic, dairy farmers were forced to dump milk that wasn’t being purchased by restaurants and food services. HTF stepped in to purchase and distribute the milk and other excess dairy products across Wisconsin. This initiative became a model for similar programs across the country.
Unfortunately, these changes are now being rolled back. The USDA has announced that certain eligibility waivers are ending, and, if benefits revert to their pre-pandemic levels, the most at-risk groups for hunger become vulnerable again. Bublitz calls for the retention of these changes that have led to significant reduction in hunger across the country.
As to what people like us can do to support food access and nutrition security, Bublitz said to stay involved: volunteer, support local organizations, and ask yourself hard questions: “How do I contribute to making society better in my neighborhood, in my community?” She also stressed the importance of remembering that nearly all changemaking centers on social activism and civic engagement.
“Find one area where you’re passionate about [social activism and civic engagement],” she said. “Use that as a way to connect those elements of your life.”