National Food Insecurity Expert Speaking at U of A

Food insecurity is one of the most pressing issues facing Arkansas communities, and to help address this issue, the Bumpers College Food Security Seminar Series is bringing leading scholars and practitioners to campus to examine it and evidence-based policy solutions relevant to Arkansas communities.

Craig Gundersen is the first featured speaker for the first seminar, hosted by U of A's Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

Gundersen is the Snee Family Endowed Chair holder and a professor in the Department of Economics at Baylor University. He is also the creator of Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap project, the standard tool for mapping food insecurity in the U.S.

His presentation, titled "Addressing Food Insecurity in Arkansas," is scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 3:30-5 p.m., in Plant Science Building room 009. His seminar is open to everyone.

Brandon McFadden, professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, is coordinating the event.

"Universities play a critical role in generating the evidence that informs public policy," McFadden said. "Through this seminar series, we aim to ensure that solutions to food insecurity in Arkansas are grounded in research and informed by expertise."

"Dr. Gundersen's work has fundamentally shaped how we measure and understand food insecurity in the United States," McFadden said. "Given the challenges facing Arkansas, it is critical that researchers, students, policymakers and community leaders engage with rigorous, evidence-based research. This seminar series is designed to foster exactly that kind of dialogue."

For almost 30 years, Gundersen's research has concentrated on the causes and consequences of food insecurity and on the evaluation of food assistance programs, with an emphasis on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program). His work was the first to show that, after controlling for non-random selection into SNAP, recipients are less likely to be food insecure than eligible non-recipients. This result was verified in subsequent papers he co-authored, including those that also addressed the misreporting of SNAP receipts.

In terms of the causes of food insecurity, his work includes examinations of multi-generational households, American Indians and food bank clients. In addition to inventing the Map the Meal Gap, he also has the two most cited review papers in this area (Gundersen, Kreider, and Pepper, 2011; Gundersen and Ziliak, 2018), with the former recognized as the Outstanding Paper in the 2011 volume of Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. 

As for the consequences of food insecurity, his work focuses on dispelling myths about the link between food insecurity and obesity, on the negative health outcomes of food insecurity among seniors and on its impacts on mortality and health care costs.

His research has been supported by more than $25 million in external funding from over 30 grants and has been published in journals such as AEPP, Food Policy, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Nutrition and others. 

Gundersen has also held positions at the University of Illinois and Iowa State University. 

About the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences: Bumpers College provides life-changing opportunities to position and prepare graduates who will be leaders in the businesses associated with foods, family, the environment, agriculture, sustainability and human quality of life; and who will be first-choice candidates of employers looking for leaders, innovators, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The college is named for Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and longtime U.S. senator who made the state prominent in national and international agriculture. For more information about Bumpers College, visit our website, and follow us on Twitter at @BumpersCollege and Instagram at BumpersCollege.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.