Puerto Rico’s Fight Against Hunger is Also a Fight for its Food Market

Some of Puerto Rico’s most recognizable buildings glowed orange and green on Sept. 29, and the cause behind the colors reaches well beyond charity.

On an island that imports about 80% or more of its food and where more than four in 10 residents rely on a capped federal nutrition grant, hunger limits how much the local food economy can sell.

As part of Hunger Action Day, Banco de Alimentos de Puerto Rico (BDA) joined forces with public and private entities to call attention to the scale of the crisis by lighting up in BDA brand colors orange and green some of the island’s most emblematic buildings and spaces, carrying a message of solidarity and action in the face of food insecurity.

The Capitol, La Fortaleza, the Department of State, Plaza Las Américas and Puerto Rico Supplies Group joined the initiative, using the lighting of their facilities as a symbol of support for a cause that requires the collective effort of all sectors.

Companies that donate, advocate and buy local are investing in their own customers.

That last phrase should be taken literally. Every household that cannot afford enough food is a household buying less of it from the island’s supermarkets, distributors, restaurants and food producers. The more families can eat, the larger the market those businesses serve.

A call that includes everyone

The initiative is part of the actions BDA promotes during September, Hunger Action Month, a movement promoted by parent organization Feeding America to raise awareness and mobilize communities against hunger. BDA is the only member of the Feeding America network in Puerto Rico.

“Every entity that joins this initiative helps carry an important message: fighting hunger takes all of us. Beyond lighting up our buildings, we seek to light up a cause and remind everyone that every action can become hope for a family in Puerto Rico,” said Mari Jo Laborde, president of BDA.

Nobody has a precise count of the need. Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, the benchmark study for the 50 states, found that 47.9 million people lived in food-insecure households nationwide in 2024, and that those households reported needing an additional $23.16 per person per week to meet their food needs, a national shortfall of $33.7 billion. But Feeding America itself says it cannot produce local estimates for Puerto Rico, because the federal data its study builds on does not include the island.

In that absence, the figure most often cited locally comes from BDA itself. Laborde has said publicly that food insecurity on the island stands at about 30%, close to 50% among seniors and children, against a U.S. average of about 10% and no state above 20%.

The root is poverty: 37.3% of Puerto Rico residents lived below the poverty line in 2024, according to Census data cited by Bread for the World.

The data gap is itself a business issue. Retailers, distributors and lenders size markets with numbers, and an island whose hunger can only be estimated is one where unmet demand cannot be measured with confidence.

Federal dollars end up on local shelves

The largest lever is public. Puerto Rico does not take part in the federal SNAP program and instead receives a fixed block grant for its Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP, known locally as PAN). For fiscal year 2026 the grant totals $2.98 billion and reaches nearly 1.42 million participants a month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is equal to about 44% of residents, Bread for the World reports.

Because the grant is capped, it cannot grow with need the way SNAP does. USDA itself notes that an increase in NAP participation may result in a decrease in benefits. That is what happened in 2020, when emergency federal funds ran out and the average household benefit fell about 40%, from roughly $323 a month in July to $188 in October, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.

The center also calculated that in 2019 a three-person household received a maximum of about $381 a month under NAP, against $505 under SNAP.

Those benefits can be spent only on food, which makes them a direct injection of demand into grocers and their suppliers.

A 2019 USDA Economic Research Service analysis estimated that each additional $1 billion in SNAP spending generates $1.54 billion in economic activity and supports 13,560 jobs, though the agency described the result as an upper-bound national estimate, not a Puerto Rico figure.

The data gap is itself a business issue. Retailers, distributors and lenders size markets with numbers, and an island whose hunger can only be estimated is one where unmet demand cannot be measured with confidence.

Moving the island into SNAP remains a live policy question. The Puerto Rico Nutrition Assistance Fairness Act (H.R. 5168) has bipartisan sponsorship but has not been enacted. A 2022 USDA feasibility study put the cost of the transition at $341 million to $426 million over roughly 10 years, and the Legislature has appropriated $207 million toward it, Bread for the World reports.

The commercial case for solidarity

BDA works to alleviate hunger and reduce food insecurity on the island through food recovery and distribution, assistance programs and alliances with organizations that serve communities directly. The organization, which has operated for 35 years, reaches all 78 municipalities through more than 130 member organizations, according to BDA materials.

Its work increasingly overlaps with health care and commerce, as it promotes the participation of citizens, companies and institutions in a shared mission: that no one in Puerto Rico goes without a plate of food on their table.

The lighting campaign asks for solidarity, and the case for it is moral. But it is also commercial. A food economy that is overwhelmingly imported, where more than four in 10 residents depend on a capped federal grant, and which cannot even count its own hungry, has a direct interest in the three things BDA is asking for: more resources for food recovery, stronger public nutrition assistance, and a bigger role for local sourcing.

Companies that donate, advocate and buy local, that is, are investing in their own customers.

The lights went off after Hunger Action Day. The arithmetic behind them did not.