The Yolo County Food Bank has seen a significant uptick in the need for food over the past year.

During the Board of Supervisors meeting on June 6, Karen Baker, executive director of the Yolo Food Bank, reported that from April 30, 2022, to April 30, 2023, the food bank has seen a 20% increase in demand.

Baker noted that this reported 20% increase does not include the additional households that are likely to seek resources due to the ending of the CalFresh Emergency Allotments. Congress initially enacted these emergency allotments in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to help families meet food needs by providing between $95 and $400 in additional financial benefits per family each month. These benefits ended in March.

“I think this is just such a critical issue to be mindful of especially because of the public’s perception that post COVID, that demand has gone down when in fact it’s gone up,” Baker emphasized.

Currently there are about 75,000 households in Yolo County. As of 2022, the poverty rate sat at 17.2%. The food bank serves about 21,500 households monthly, equating to about a third of households in the county, through their 145 monthly food distribution events and the households served by their 84 partner agencies.

Some of these partner agencies include Meals on Wheels, CommuniCare, Fourth & Hope, Yolo Crisis Nursery, RISE, Inc., Woodland Community College and the UC Davis Food Pantry.

According to Baker, 44% of students at UC Davis are food insecure. About 20% of the food that comes into the food bank warehouse is allocated to UC Davis and feeding its students.

“It’s a really big hotspot of food insecurity that we are trying to meet,” she said.

Baker stressed the food bank and all of their partner agencies were feeling this increase in demand.

“I was out this morning at the Yolo County Fairgrounds and there were over 200 cars lined up,” Baker said.

In addition to the increasing demand for food, the food bank has also been experiencing a decrease in donations. In particular, there has been a 33% decrease in food donations that comes from grocery recovery.

“So at the same time you’ve got this increase, you’ve also got this dramatic decrease,” Baker said. “Our height was 12 million pounds, during the height of the pandemic, with everyone giving us their extra stock or even community members contributing. That is now down to eight million.”

Baker explained that this means that the amount of food given to each household has significantly decreased. Before, the food bank was able to give anywhere from 60 to 65 pounds per household. That amount is now down to 45 pounds.

“We are going to face a very unfortunate decision where we either will completely have to turn people away or have to reduce the poundage even more,” she stressed.

Baker said they will continue to track the demand, especially in the coming weeks and months as households begin to feel the effects of the ending of the CalFresh Emergency Allotments, and will likely be back at a later date with additional updates.

“We hope we can work with our county to really examine this issue, especially in the remaining two years of the ARP funds that might be available and work out a plan in partnership to try to meet some of this need,” Baker said.