food availability

The federal government has cut food aid and tightened restrictions for food assistance programs. As summer kicks in, rural districts might have trouble keeping up with need. So might food pantries.

Mike Switzer interviews Dr. Nesh Hikmet, an information technology professor at the University of South Carolina and co-owner of Tom’s Creek Family Farms in Hopkins, S.C., the Farmers Market Xchange in Columbia, and the Tom’s Creek Family Farms Mobile Market.

Mike Switzer interviews Dr. Nesh Hikmet, an information technology professor at the University of South Carolina and co-owner of Tom’s Creek Family Farms in Hopkins, S.C., the Farmers Market Xchange in Columbia, and the Tom’s Creek Family Farms Mobile Market.

Starting March 4, the City of Columbia will be launching a mobile food market to help combat the food disparity problem in the area.

The City of Columbia is in the process of rolling out incentives for grocery stores to open in food-insecure neighborhoods. The effort is modeled on a program by the City of Greenville (that, so far, hasn't landed a grocer with it).

Two Florida-based grocery chains are limiting the number of items sold to customers ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday. Officials say Publix and Winn-Dixie are placing limits on some items due to the ongoing supply chain issues.

Word that a Smithfield pork processing plant in South Dakota, where 5 percent of the nation's pork is processed, sent ripples across the U.S. food…