Rural communities across the country are grappling with food insecurity. This week, INN’s Rural News Network (RNN), in partnership with The Associated Press, began publishing its latest collaboration, Sowing Resilience, depicting what food insecurity looks like in U.S. rural communities in 2025 — and how they are responding to a need compounded by rising costs and cuts to government programs.
The participating newsrooms include The Beacon, Capital B, Enlace Latino NC, Investigate Midwest, The Jefferson County Beacon, KOSU, Louisville Public Media, The Maine Monitor and MinnPost.
In Washington and Maine, a network of farmers markets, food banks and local organizations work to address hunger among elderly residents as the government assistance they relied on dwindles. Schoolchildren in North Carolina are noticing the decline in the quality of the food on their lunch trays since the end of a federal farm-to-school food program.
Reporters in Minnesota, Kansas and Mississippi traveled to rural grocery stores to understand the challenges in providing consistent access to fresh, healthy food in such remote places, while Investigate Midwest explored why farmers in the Midwest are increasingly struggling to access enough food for themselves.
Upcoming stories will explore how, in Oklahoma, tribal nations are filling the gaps in their communities with innovative efforts even as they face uncertainty from government cuts across agencies. And in Kentucky, local organizations are raising red flags about how the state is denying people access to food assistance.
Hours before publishing, the USDA announced it will stop collecting national hunger statistics — the very data RNN worked with The AP to analyze for the collaboration. That news made it into each of the nine stories, a timely and relevant addition for these stories where that data was critical in the reporting process.
This series uncovers how communities are navigating — and reimagining — the systems that have left them hungry. Read the series and follow its publication on Instagram and Bluesky.
