Food banks are struggling to attract enough donations of food to keep up with an increasing demand from hungry families, reports the Los Angeles Times.

About one-fifth of food-bank supplies come from the federal government, says Kate Houston, deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. In 2001 the federal government bought $319-million worth of surplus food — but just $67-million worth in 2007 because of a strong market for farmers’ goods, the Times reports. Additionally, food makers have become more efficient and produce less extra food, which they used to donate to food banks.

Food banks and the food pantries they stock have been forced to open on fewer days with fewer items.

“The state of food banks, I think, in America — and in Los Angeles in particular — is really in dismal shape,” says H. Eric Schockman, president of Mazon, a charity in the California city. “Our emergency food system has really been unraveled over the last few years.”

In Los Angeles County, households whose food supply is unstable increased 17 percent between 2002 and 2005, says a report released last year by the county’s public-health department.

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