DOD is “all in” on solving food insecurity within the military, Patricia Montes Barron, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy said at a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies event, as reported by Military Times.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “wants to make sure we’re addressing this and getting to it as quickly as we can,” she said.

Barron said before she started her job in January that no one at the Pentagon “owned” the issue of food insecurity.

“Now the department is much more aware,” she said. “Military Community and Family Policy… now owns the issue of food insecurity, and we’re hard at work since April to develop a plan for the department that everyone can wrap their arms around.”

Among the actions taken already are efforts to educate military life counselors and military families about the resources available to them and a pilot data collection tool to assess family nutrition needs.

Army National Guard photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jason Alvarez