The US department of agriculture says that tens of millions of people in the country do not know where their next meal is coming from.

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, says the department identifies two categories of food insecurity.

"In the first one, the diet is not very varied and the quality of food is not very good. The second, more severe category, is listed as multiple indicators of disrupted food intake."

With one in four children affected by the situation and more than half of them under the age of six, the issue is to be highlighted in a nationwide broadcast of the educational TV show Sesame Street.