U.S. Charity Accelerating Plans Due to Recession

"We are planning on accelerating the five-year plan by two years," she said at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit. "In essence, we plan to get that 1 billion pounds of new food by 2010 just to meet the demand. We don't have a choice."

Feeding America's network of more than 200 U.S. food banks distributed 2.17 billion pounds of food in its 2008 fiscal year, up 2.4 percent from the previous year. It also served 25 million Americans.