This volume of The Reference Shelf looks at America's food economy and food inequality. Though America is the world's wealthiest nation and has some of the most productive agricultural land in the world, it still has a serious problem with food availability and hunger.

1.Poverty, unemployment, and underemployment -- The economic dimension of America's food problems -- Food insecurity in the U.S. by the numbers / Christianna Silva -- U.S. is a land of plenty, so why do millions of Americans still go hungry? / Jeffrey H. Cohen and Jay L. Zagorsky -- America's dirty little secret: 42 million people are suffering from hunger / Susan Caminiti -- World hunger is still not going down after three years and obesity is still growing / United Nations -- 2. Supplementing nutrition -- Supplementing food for families and children -- Trump fights in court to block pandemic food aid for lowest-income Americans / Helena Bottemiller Evich -- Making SNAP healthier with food incentives and disincentives could improve health and save costs / Dariush Mozaffarian -- Why are more schools going after families for lunch debt? / Emily Moon -- Debt collectors over kids' school lunch bills? It's real / Jessica Fu -- Schools are shaming kids who can't afford lunch, but there are ways to stop it / Monica Humphries -- 3. Finding food -- Food deserts and the search for nutrition -- Everything you need to know about food deserts / Jessica Booth -- Eliminating food deserts won't help poorer Americans eat healthier / Hunt Allcott, Jean-Pierre Dubé, and Molly Schnell -- The fight to eliminate food deserts in St. Louis / Rebecca Koenig -- It's not the food deserts: it's the inequality / Richard Florida -- The COVID-19 crisis has already left too many children hungry in America / Lauren Bauer -- A crisis within a crisis: food insecurity and COVID-19 / Michel Martin -- Study: 29 million American adults don't have enough to eat, nearly a threefold increase from two years / Sam Bloch -- COVID-19 pandemic is the first time 40% of Americans have experienced food insecurity / Megan Leonhardt -- 4. The world's problem -- Global factors contributing to hunger -- Climate change and global hunger / Emily Folk -- World hunger has risen for three straight years, and climate change is a cause / Jessica Eise and Kenneth Foster -- Trump's trade wars have made bad agriculture policies worse / Clark Packard -- Food banks win in a Trump trade war / April Simpson -- Tackling hunger at home and abroad because our food policy is our foreign policy / Dwight Evans -- 5. Finding solutions -- Efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity in the United States -- Why community-owned grocery stores like co-ops are the best recipe for revitalizing food deserts / Catherine Brinkley -- Neglected crops could be global solution for food insecurity / Daphne Ewing-Chow -- The solution to food insecurity is food sovereignty / Jeongyeol Kim and Pramesh Pokharel -- GMOs are an ally in a changing climate / Emma Harris -- Urban farming is the future of agriculture / Patrick Caughill.