JUNE 3, 2014 BY ÉVA NAGY
BUDAPEST BEACON.COM: According to a recent Gallup poll 47 percent of Hungarian families with children and 35 percent of families without children said there was a time during the previous twelve months when they did not have enough money to buy the food they needed.
Out of 34 OECD member countries (which includes Mexico, Greece, and Portugal), only Turkey scored worse than Hungary.
Together-PM alliance MP Timea Szabo told ATV that many Hungarian children receive little to eat outside of school. She said existing government programs to feed some 600,000 children during the summer break only reach one in five children because most local governments are unable to satisfy unreasonably strict criteria set by the government, namely that 30% of the ingrediants be grown or produced within a 100 km radius and that the food be cooked locally.
Szabo estimates feeding 600,000 children when school is not in session would cost the government HUF 18 billion (USD 85 million) annually, or one tenth the amount the government is in the process of spending on new football stadiums.
Within the OECD 21 percent of families with children and 15 percent without children responded that they had not had money to buy the food they or their family needed at some point during the previous twelve months.
