Parents are sending kids to foster homes because they can't afford to feed them

During a short pause in their services, one charity heard of a family who felt they had no option but to place their children into foster care because they could no longer afford to feed them.

That reality should stop us cold.

In a wealthy country, children are being separated from their parents because household costs have outpaced the ability to put food on the table.

This isn't an abstract debate about inflation or budgets. It's the sharp edge of policy decisions landing in kitchens, schools and family lives.

OzHarvest rescues food, but what we are increasingly responding to is not a short-term spike in need.

It is sustained pressure on families who have run out of room to absorb rising costs. Last year, we delivered more than 35 million meals to 1500 charity partners, including 240 schools across Australia. We are increasingly hearing a confronting story: for many children, school has become the most reliable place to eat.

Our Frontline Report, the country's most comprehensive survey of front-line food relief organisations, is reinforcing what community workers, teachers and volunteers are seeing every day.

Demand for food relief is rising, and more than one in three people are seeking help for the first time.

Charities are overwhelmed with demand and we are seeing it play out in every state and territory, with huge ripple effects for children.

The warning lights are flashing everywhere. In Victoria, eight in 10 food relief charities report rising demand. NSW is not far behind. In Queensland, demand is accelerating while nearly three in four charities say they don't have enough food to meet it.

In Tasmania, the crisis is drawing in new faces at an alarming rate: 43 per cent of those seeking help are doing so for the first time.

Nationally, one in five seeking relief are turned away because there just isn't enough help to go around.

These are working families, sometimes with double incomes, parents paying rent, getting kids to school, doing everything they can - who discover that after housing, energy, medication and now fuel costs, there's just nothing left for groceries.

Parents carry that pressure. They skip meals so their kids can eat. They stretch what is left. And only when there is nothing left to stretch do children feel the full impact.

The consequences extend well beyond hunger. Food stress shows up in the classroom - longitudinal studies show food insecurity leads to lower reading and maths achievement, as well as declining classroom behaviour. Children who experience food insecurity are more than twice as likely to be food insecure as adults. This is how disadvantage becomes intergenerational, through systems that fail to keep pace with reality.

Teachers tell us they are buying food from their own pockets so students can get through the day. Parents keep children home rather than send them to school without lunch, experiencing unbearable shame. Breakfast clubs report kids eating with urgency because the next meal cannot be assumed. This should not be normal.

Right now, Australia is developing its first National Food Security Strategy. It is a critical moment, and one Australian children and their families cannot afford to be sidelined from.

Food relief, while not the solution to long-term food security, is a critical social support service which stabilises households in crisis. It must be properly recognised and resourced by the federal government, with emergency surge funding to respond to immediate pressure spikes, as well as stronger, sustained investment so that no one seeking help is turned away.

But charity alone cannot carry the full weight of structural problems.

We need to be honest about what is driving families to food relief in the first place. The housing crisis, inadequate income support, and the growing gap between wages and living costs are forcing impossible tradeoffs in households across the country. For children especially, the case for targeted action is clear: universal school meals and better access to food literacy education.

This is not just about hunger today. It is about the pressures that push families into crisis, and the long-term consequences when those pressures go unaddressed.

In a year when food security is on the national agenda, and when we're staring down the long tail of unpredictable supply, the upcoming National Food Security Strategy and federal budget will show whether we as a nation are prepared to protect the next generation - or ask them to carry the cost of delay.

Hungry children are not inevitable. Our federal government must ensure the next generation isn't left behind.