World Food Day has come and gone this month and not many noticed that nearly 1 billion are hungry around the world.

The day is observed each year on October 16 and, this year, as usual, most Americans went about their business - including eating two or three complete meals - without too much thought about the people who are hungry.

Many of the hungry are children and there have been some stories about hunger or “food insecurity,” a euphemism that means generally that one doesn’t know what one is going to eat for the next meal or if one is going to eat a next meal.

Usually, it takes a special day, like Oct. 16, to get a subject like hunger talked or written about in the American press. Earlier this year, it was reported that the numbers of the hungry are increasing, the recession is making it worse, and the percentages are alarming: Feeding America (FA) issued “Hunger in America 2010,” the largest study of domestic hunger, drawing on data from more than 61,000 interviews with their members’ clients, as well as surveys of 37,000 feeding agencies.

FA is a non-profit food broker (it used to be called Second Harvest) that negotiates with giant food corporations and others for food that is surplus or leftover or not sent to retail stores for some other reason, and it provides that food for shelters, food pantries, and other (usually volunteer) outlets that distribute food to the hungry.

FA reported in 2010 that it is providing food to 37 million Americans, including 14 million children, an increase of 46 percent over 2006. What is generally not known is that, in 36 percent of the homes receiving food from the member pantries, at least one adult is working.

Here’s a general definition of what we’re talking about, from the Food and Research Action Center, just this month: “Very simply, hunger is defined as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. When we talk about hunger in America, we refer to the ability of people to obtain sufficient food for their household. Some people may find themselves skipping meals or cutting back on the quality or quantity of food they purchase at the stores. This recurring and involuntary lack of access to food can lead to malnutrition over time.”

Millions of American children feel that “uneasy or painful sensation,” but imagine the hungry children around the world, numbering in the hundreds of millions. Mainly, it’s because they are poor - their families are poor. They cannot buy enough food to stave off hunger and, usually, they don’t see any relief in the near or distant future.

Socioeconomic status (SES) has a lot to do with whether one eats well, grows up healthy, and is able to find a job that can sustain a family (when there were jobs in America). For example, in Health Issues in the Black Community, Braithwaite, Taylor, and Treadwell wrote: “Socioeconomic status is a major predictor of dietary intake. Blacks are disproportionately represented among the low-income segment of the population, and low SES has been linked to a variety of dietary or nutritional problems…In 2006, the majority of black persons (55 percent) lived in families that could be classified as poor or near poor…”

Also, in the same book, it was noted, “higher levels of food insecurity may lead to poorer diet quality and increased calorie consumption. Energy-dense, but nutrient-poor foods and beverages may be less expensive and therefore more likely to be available in households with limited financial resources.”

It’s no accident that sickness and disease are prevalent in urban and rural ghettoes, which other academics have described as “food deserts,” meaning that the only foods that are easily available or affordable are fast foods or manufactured foods that barely resemble the vegetables, grains, and other products from which they came. In such places, there are few supermarkets or other places to buy nutrient-dense food at a reasonable cost. The additives and production methods of the cheapest foods (these are, after all, “manufactured” foods) are being held responsible by more and more Americans for the alarming increase in diabetes, obesity, and other health problems in recent years.

But what are elected officials doing about the problem of hunger, which exacerbates virtually every other problem (remember, it is a socioeconomic issue)? Tea Party adherents and others in the Republican Party are against raising the minimum wage (in fact, many are against any minimum wage law), they have voted against extending unemployment benefits to people who have no prospect of finding a job in the foreseeable future, they have eliminated the cost of living increase in Social Security for the past two years, and they are aiming to chip away at Medicare and Medicaid. The ostensible reason for no COLA for Social Security is that there is low inflation, but the increase in gasoline and home heating oil prices gives the lie to that assertion. And, what’s worse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week that food inflation will “accelerate” in the next few months and into the first half of 2011, especially for dairy products, meat, and cereals (grain products).

As for jobs, in this Great Recession, in which the disparity in wealth is the greatest since the Great Depression of 75 years ago, in the waning days of the Robber Barons, the jobs that will be available will be at the low end of the economic scale - what we saw starting about 30 years ago - not quite enough to pull enough Americans out of the depths of the recession.

In other countries around the world, where the global policies of transnational corporations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and governments of the “developed” countries have virtually dictated food policies for billions, they have been struggling toward “food sovereignty” for several years.

According to Joel Greeno, a dairy farmer and member of Family Farm Defenders in Wisconsin and the National Family Farm Coalition, “Food sovereignty is about fair trade, international security, energy independence, all that, but it really starts with you - where you buy your food, how you take care of your neighbor. It’s that simple.”

Emulating peasant and indigenous peoples in “developing countries,” Americans have launched formation of the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, seen as a key answer to ending hunger, economic disparity, and climate change.

The People’s Movement Assembly on Food Sovereignty, at the Social Forum 2010 in Detroit, declared, “We find that our work to build a better food system in the United States is inextricably linked to the struggle for workers’ rights, immigrant rights, women’s rights, the fight to dismantle racism in our communities, and the struggle for sovereignty in indigenous communities. We find that in order to create a better food system, we must break up the corporate control of our seeds, land, water, and natural resources.”

It’s a tall order, but it can be done, if we are to eliminate hunger and all of the related ills of a society that stands in such economic despair and in which so many are suffering. In recent weeks, there was at least one story on television news about people who had been in the $75,000-$200,000 income bracket who have lost their jobs, their homes, and they are finding food in their local pantries. To some, this is an astounding set of events in a country such as America. It shouldn’t be astounding, except for those who think Americans are not like other peoples in the world.

Although some Americans might want to take more direct action, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has started a worldwide petition drive to end hunger. FAO’s theme for World Food Day this year was “United Against Hunger,” and the petition can be found at www.1billionhungry.org. The ills of society are connected to hunger in so many ways. Signing a petition might not sound like doing enough, but it’s a good start.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.